


The Dragon's Arms

by ani_mage



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Clubbing, Coming Out, Face-Fucking, Grimmauld Place, Happy Ending, M/M, PTSD, Post-War, Potioneer!Draco, Rimming, Secrets, Trans Character, odd jobs!Harry, references to canonical child abuse, tattooed!Harry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-22
Updated: 2016-04-22
Packaged: 2018-05-31 01:16:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6449623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ani_mage/pseuds/ani_mage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Since the war, Harry’s been living on the fringes of the Muggle world and alienated from the Wizarding world. Draco’s struggled his whole life to satisfy his father’s idea of what it means to be a “Malfoy Man” in the Wizarding world, never comfortable in the role. Can they help each other find a place where they feel at home?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Day One

**Author's Note:**

> You have my blanket permission to podfic, translate, or make any kind of art for this fic. Just link me to it so I can flail!
> 
> I’ve tweaked the story after my beta readers looked at the final draft, so any remaining mistakes are mine. Feel free to point them out to me so I can fix them. 
> 
> To my writing group—Supposedly, I’m a writer, but words can’t express how thankful I am for the help that you gave me with this fic. You looked at so many drafts of this story from start to finish. I don’t know that I could have finished this fic without your help!
> 
> To my fandom betas—tavia_d (who also Brit-picked) and JosephineStone. I can’t thank you guys enough for being so generous and kind in your beta reading for a complete stranger. Thank you thank you thank you!
> 
> To Vaysh—I don’t want to say too much about the prompt, because I don’t want to spoil the fic, but thank you for writing it. It was the last prompt for the fest, but when I saw it I knew that I had to write this story. I hope you like it!
> 
> To the mods of the 2016 Draco tops Harry Fest, corona_0304 and Vaysh—thank you for putting on this fest! And sorry that my fic is so late! I worked on this story non-stop for about a month and a half, and then couldn’t seem to let it go in the end.

Harry Potter wore nappies to bed until he was seven years old. After washing the dishes from their tea, Aunt Petunia would lock him in his cupboard until it was time to prepare breakfast the next morning. Most nights he woke before he wet himself, and stayed awake, his hands rubbing the sharp pain in his belly, listening for the rasp of the old bolt turning in the lock at 6 o’clock. But sometimes, Harry woke after. In the years since he learned that he was a wizard, Harry often wondered why his wild magic hadn’t protected him on those nights when he didn’t jolt himself awake, why his magic hadn’t kept him safe and warm and dry.

* * *

_Grimmauld Place_

I last an hour at the party, before I escape to the balcony. My knees feel liquid, and I sit on the narrow floor lest I collapse. I’ve not done as well as I’d hoped. 

I’m hot all over despite the chilly weather, my breaths are coming out ragged, as if I’ve run a long distance, and there’s a tremor in my hands. I’d convinced myself that I was ready to see everyone again, that it wouldn’t be so different from hearing stories about my old schoolmates from Hermione and Ron. Never mind that I haven’t really been a part of the Wizarding world for ten years. Never mind that I had to wear my invisibility cloak on Platform 9 ¾ just to see Teddy off to Hogwarts in September. 

I press my forehead against the wrought iron railing, hard enough to hurt, to hopefully disrupt my body’s reaction to being around so many people. So many _wizards_. I’ve nothing against Muggles, and actually quite like the press of a crowd of anonymous bodies against mine—on the tube at rush hour, in a club, on busy London streets—as long as they don’t know who I am. But the thought of going back into that room full of wizards makes the sweat run down my sides. I roll the cool heel of my bottle of lager against my neck, and focus on the people in the street below. I’m not sure how long I zone out, but when I come to, the bottle has turned warm, and the Muggles on Grimmauld have shifted from the after-work-harried to the pub-going-jovial. 

By some people’s standards, the fact that I’m hiding on this balcony instead of celebrating with Hermione makes me undeserving of the title of Best Friend and Flatmate, and they’re probably right. I’m the last person to explain why Hermione has stuck with me all these years, but, whatever my failings, Hermione knows that I’m happy for her. We’re family, for better or worse. I might have to take her word for it that publishing a patent for a medical potion in _Wand & Bone _is a very big deal, but tonight I’ve let the world I tried to escape into my home. And Hermione understands how hard that is for me. After all, she’s lived here with me, in virtual isolation, for ten years and never questioned my need for privacy. 

But I was wrong to tell her that I was ready to attend this party. I should have made myself scarce tonight. In the drawing room, I’d stood in the corner, using the ancient gramophone sitting atop an IKEA side table as a shield. Instead of greeting Hermione’s guests, I watched the gramophone’s Charmed crank turn slowly on its hinge until I couldn’t tell if I was dizzy from its lazy rotation or my own anxiety. Hermione must have warned everyone to keep their distance, because Padma had been the only person to approach me. Normally, she’s one of the only friends that Hermione brings round, and she’s almost as socially inept as I am, so I’m all right with her saying hello. Her hellos are always somewhat stern, perfunctory, as if she’s reminding herself to observe the social niceties rather than actually ascertaining how I am. She expects nothing from me, so I try my best. 

There’s a proper English drizzle going, and though the _Impervious_ Hermione cast on the balcony keeps me dry, I’ve been away from the stress of the party long enough to have developed a chill. I pull on my sweatshirt and flip up its hood. I swig my now-warm beer until the bottle’s empty. 

My head jerks up as the drawing room’s French window is pushed open. I draw my knees to my chest to evade the frame as it swings out. Sounds of party chatter, laughter, and the Muggle record playing on the gramophone momentarily burst my quiet. I watch as Draco Malfoy squeezes onto the balcony, closing the window behind him. He looks a bit startled when he turns around and finds me already here, but the surprise is only there for a moment, before he schools his features into neutrality and stiffens his back.

“Oh, hello, Potter.”

Though he, Padma, and Hermione are research fellows in the Experimental Potions department at St Mungo’s, and have been for two years, Draco, unlike Padma, I’ve managed to avoid until tonight. It’s nothing personal, contrary to what he probably believes. He’s at Grimmauld tonight, because, though all the guests are here for Hermione, this party is really in celebration of their joint success. They wrote and published the patent for a cheaper, easy to brew version of Wolfsbane together. 

“Draco.” 

I take pleasure in the way his cheek twitches at my use of his first name. The fact that I feel anything besides anxiety is a surprise, and my heart beats a little faster in response.

He clears his throat. “I apologise,” he says. “I won’t intrude on your solitude for long, but I’m afraid of what I’ll say if I have to hear about Padma’s asphodel monograph one more time.”

I shrug, like his presence or lack thereof doesn’t matter to me. It hurts me a little bit not to smile when I see him twitch again. In truth, I’m curious, because the Draco Malfoy I knew in school would never bite his tongue for fear of offending someone. Of course, Hermione’s made sure that I know he’s not the same prat, but now I’m seeing the evidence for myself. I find that there’s a fair amount of annoyance mixed in with the intrigue, because the reality that Draco Malfoy’s done so well for himself in our post-war world, and I, well, I have not—it smarts.

I covertly study him as he leans his arse against the railing opposite me. I’ve seen pictures of him and Hermione at awards dinners and Ministry functions, but this is the first time since the trials, when I testified for him and his mother, that I’ve been up close. He’s so changed that I hardly recognise him, and I’m just the same scrawny boy, though I’m a man now. He was always taller than me, but wispy, almost delicate. Now his shoulders are broad, arms and legs thick. Even his face has changed, and where once his chin was sharp and pointed and his jaw smooth, now it’s squared. 

I wonder if it’s magic. How else can a person change so much in just a handful of years? I doubt I’d recognise him if it weren’t for the platinum hair and cloudy grey eyes. 

It does not escape my notice that he looks a lot like my last boyfriend, Carl. Except Carl was a Muggle layabout who never had enough dosh for a pint, and Draco Malfoy is a Potions prodigy, etc., etc.

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “To hear Hermione tell it, Padma’s work on asphodel is riveting stuff. According to her, it’ll be flying off the shelves.” Of course, Hermione’s not said one word to me about Padma’s most likely boring as fuck scholarship.

“Well, you would know more about books flying off of shelves than I.”

I decide to play along, though I’m annoyed at Hermione for telling him that I work in a Muggle bookshop, and wonder what else she’s said about me. 

“That’s right,” I say. “I am the expert on flying books.”

“Now that’s a monograph I’d like to read.” He gives me a smile that’s a bit cheeky. It’s a handsome smile, and it’s doing something funny to my chest. I’m getting that feeling again, like I’ve been running and can’t catch my breath, except, this time, it’s not entirely bad.

“I could use another drink,” I say, but make no move to get up. He looks a bit confused, as though he’s not sure if I expect him to get me another. He shifts forward, stepping away from the railing. 

“Do you dance?” I ask. I’m not sure where the question came from, whether I’m fucking with him or fucking with myself.

“Pardon?”

“I asked if you dance.”

Draco presses his lips together, and he seems to be considering me. I wonder how far off the Harry Potter he sees before him is from the version of me he’s imagined. How is a hero supposed to look ten years down the line? Stalwart? Clean cut? I look more like an underfed punk who hangs about on street corners bumming fags, though I’ve been told I have my merits. I glance down at my body, at the ratty hoodie and the old denims, a pair of Dudley’s upon which I’ve applied several shrinking charms until they cling to my bum and skinny thighs. I don’t have to wear Dudley’s castoffs anymore, but I’ve kept them with me as mementos, as a reminder that I come from somewhere. Is that what Draco sees, a castoff, a castaway from both the Muggle and the Wizarding world? Not at home in either.

More likely, Draco probably never thinks of me at all. I frown.

“I had dance lessons as a child,” he says.

“I’m not talking about the foxtrot.”

“That’s good, because Muggle dances weren’t exactly a part of Madam Villere’s repertoire.”

“Fine, then the Centaur Swing,” I say with a half a laugh.

“Well, that certainly doesn’t sound like a dance befitting a gentleman.”

“Who said anything about gentlemen?”

He studies me for a moment, and I guess he decides to keep our game going.

“I suppose I could use another drink,” he says, though he came out here empty handed.

I hop up, tossing my bottle over the railing. Hermione’s placed a charm around the house and front porch to banish empties. 

“So we’re in agreement?” I say.

“I’m not entirely sure what I’m agreeing to,” he says, which isn’t exactly a _no_. 

I can’t help but smile at him, even as a curl of dread unfurls in my belly. I feel fucked up, though I’ve only had the one lager. 

“I want to go to a Muggle club.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. You can buy me a drink. And maybe I’ll teach you the Centaur Swing.”

“I’m hardly dressed for a club.”

“I can fix that. Do you trust me?”

“Trust you?”

I can’t quite read his expression, but I’ll admit that the idea of trust between us is laughable. Though we have saved each other’s lives, and maybe that counts for something. 

“To transfigure your jumper,” I say.

“I like this jumper.”

It is a nice jumper, but I don’t tell him that. I just wait for him to respond.

He sighs, nodding his head. 

I reach out my hand, grab the soft knit of his sleeve between my fingers. I _do_ like the baby blue colour, because it makes his overcast eyes a little brighter, so, as I push my magic from my gut, down my arm, collect it in my palm, I picture him in a blue-jumper-coloured tee shirt, tight around his biceps and strong chest. When I blink, he’s standing before me, tee-shirted and looking shocked. I know I’m showing off with my wandless magic, and it makes me uncomfortable. It’s not that I don’t do magic, because I do, but usually it’s in private, or only around Hermione and Teddy. Performing this simple transfiguration in front of him— _for_ him—makes me feel a bit giddy, like that shaky feeling I get when I’m hungry and can’t stop my body’s fluttering. I can taste the spell on my tongue, sweet and sparkling. I want more. Nothing’s happened, and, already, I’m fucked up. _Why him? Why him? Fucking, why_ him _?_

I swallow the laugh I feel building in my throat, because this might be the first time that Draco Malfoy has ever worn a tee shirt, and he still looks like he has a stick up his posh chino-covered arse. He’s definitely not club appropriate, but at least I’m getting a look at his muscles.

It takes him a moment of goggling at my magic hands before he realises that his arm is exposed, and his right palm slaps over the Mark on his left forearm. 

“Relax,” I say. “Muggles don’t care. In fact, where we’re going, you’ll fit right in.” 

It gives me a perverse pleasure to pretend like his Mark, his crimes, his suffering under Voldemort mean nothing, when, in fact, they mean everything to me, the boy who never got over the war. When I know, because Hermione’s told me again and again, how hard it still is for him, how no matter how many accolades he receives from Mungo’s or the Ministry, people still spit on him in the street and send him cursed mail. We’re playing a game, but I don’t know what my objective is. I think that I vaguely want to hurt him, or maybe I want him to hurt me. And fuck me. Obviously. What happens after that is anyone’s game. 

I unzip my hoodie, shrug it off, and drop it to the ground. I hold out my right arm, which is wrapped in black line tattoos of blooming roses. I’m wearing an old black tee shirt with the sleeves cut off, and the tattoos run all the way up my skinny arm to the closed bud of a blush-red rose on my shoulder, seemingly painted in watercolour rather than pierced into my skin. I twist my arm back and forth, as if to say, _See, we match_.

“Side-along?” I ask.

He looks down at his own arm, and I can’t help follow his gaze to the still-black tattoo. I suppose it’s ugly, but I realise that I feel neither disgust nor fear when I look at it. 

“Nobody there will care,” I say again. I’m not sure whether I’m including myself in that statement.

He takes a deep breath, steps toward me. He grabs the soft flesh of my bicep, and I’m surprised that his hand is clammy. 

“I care,” I hear him say, just a moment before I picture in my mind’s eye the alley three streets over from the club, just before I feel the press of Apparition, the iron bands around my chest.

 

_The Dragon’s Arms_

He steps away from me as soon as we land in the dark throat of the alley. I lead him to the street, and we walk the three blocks in bustling Soho in silence. Standing in front of The Dragon’s Arms, the thump of the music coursing through my body is electrifying, like I haven’t entirely lost the giddy rush of feelings that talking with Draco on the balcony brought out. I bounce on the balls of my feet and glance at Draco, who’s taking in the sign over the door, a giant, blinking neon green dragon breathing rainbow flames. 

“I can’t figure out,” Draco says, “if this is some kind of very elaborate joke at my expense.”

“You got me. I’ve colluded with all of these Muggles to open a club just to make fun of you.” I laugh, because I _did_ choose The Dragon’s Arms at least in part because of its serendipitous name. My eyes drift back to the glowing sign, and I’m suddenly feeling a lot less mirthful. The Dragon’s Arms belongs to a tender part of me, a part that, inconceivably, I want to uncover and show Draco. I turn toward him, unsure how to communicate that by bringing him here, I am sharing something that I’ve not given any other wizard. I realise that whatever game I thought I was playing has very quickly got out of my hands, except for the fact that maybe I’m toying with myself. “This was the first club I ever went to when I was eighteen,” I say. “Just after the— _After_.”

Draco swings his gaze towards me, and the look in his eyes is intense, scrutinizing. 

“I’ve not been here in a few years. I guess your name reminded me of it.” I give him a sheepish smile. “Come on.” I push at his shoulder, and hold my palm there a moment longer than I probably should.

We pass through a hallway of orange flames. It must be Draco’s presence, because the walkway never reminded me of the burning Room of Requirement before, but it does now. Looking at his stiff back, I wonder if he’s thinking about that night too, but his uptight posture isn’t all that different from what I observed earlier on the balcony and what I remember about him from school. I bustle him along to the club proper, where, thankfully, the decorators mostly forgot about the dragon theme. We make our way to the bar, and I order us each a beer. I don’t bother asking Draco what he wants, because I don’t know if he’s familiar with Muggle drinks. I reach for my wallet, and Draco touches my wrist, just for a moment before he removes his hand.

“I thought I was buying the drinks?” he says.

I lean closer to him, so as not to be heard. “Do you have any Muggle money?”

“I have a credit card.”

I raise my eyebrows. There’s an entire story behind that one sentence, but I let it go for now. “Next round, then,” I say.

He frowns, and I notice that his bottom lip is very full, but pale—almost the colour of his milky skin—but then he nods, and I hand him a bottle of ale and a beermat decorated with a spiral of rainbow flames. I point him toward a nearby pub table. I swish my finger around our little spot, dimming the sound with a spell, not so much that I can’t feel the music in my feet, but enough that we’ll be able to talk without yelling. I know that I’m being reckless now, but Draco doesn’t say anything about my use of magic around all these Muggles.

“This is a gay bar, Potter.”

“Oh, shite, Draco. I assumed you knew about me. I mean, from _The Prophet_. They were going on about it for weeks.”

It’s been eleven years since the war, but the Wizarding papers still print regular stories about me, even though my reclusive lifestyle means they don’t usually have any evidence to prove their outlandish gossip. About a year ago, a Muggle-born saw me at a Vauxhall party and outed me to _The Prophet_. Never once have I addressed the previous rumours that they printed about me, but this one time I did confirm that, yes, I am gay. I didn’t want to teach Teddy that it was something to be ashamed of, and I have my suspicions about him. I almost stopped coming to the clubs after the article, but I wouldn’t let the Wizarding world take this from me after everything else I’ve given it. I’m fairly certain that we’re safe here, but I’ll feel like a complete wanker if I’ve inadvertently outed Draco.

“I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have brought you here without checking with you first. We can go somewhere—”

“Relax,” he says. “I knew about you.” His eyes flit over my body, and, again, I wonder what he sees. “But how did _you_ know about _me_?”

“I suppose I just assumed. Since you agreed to go dancing with me.”

“Ah,” he says. He looks away from me, to the dance floor. “I thought maybe Hermione told you.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“Yes,” he says, his voice distant. “Why would she say anything to you about me.”

“No, it’s not that she doesn’t talk about you. She does, it’s just that Hermione’s not the type to gossip about someone else’s personal business.” I remember Draco’s quip on the balcony about my experience with books. “Actually, I amend that statement, as it appears that she, at least, talks with her workmates about me. Though I guess the fact that I work in a bookshop isn’t terribly scintillating gossip.”

“I asked,” he says.

I’m not sure how to respond to that, so I just say, “Oh.”

His hand darts across the table for a moment, and his fingers graze my knuckles. I’m startled, and he pulls back and grabs his beer before I can respond, though I’m not sure how I would. I meet his eyes, and I’m shocked by how earnest he looks.

“I may not be out to the entire Wizarding world, but I’m not ashamed,” he says. “About… about being gay. Not at all. I won’t pretend that it was easy growing up a Malfoy and trying to be myself. It was drilled into me from a young age that certain things were to be kept private, and a lot of that has carried over into adulthood, but it’s been a long time since I’ve worried about pleasing my father. My friends all know, but it’s just—” He stops for a moment, and takes a drink from his bottle. I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “I don’t have a lot of friends in the Wizarding world, but the people who are important know.”

I’m silent for a moment, and I try to suss out all that he’s saying. With the bits and pieces that Hermione’s shared, I already knew that Draco hasn’t had an easy go of it in the post-war Wizarding world. Even though I sense that there’s a lot that he _isn’t_ telling me, it’s still a surprise that he’s exposing himself like this and to _me_. I remember his excuse about escaping onto the balcony at Grimmauld—Padma’s boring monograph—and wonder if he was really out there because he felt as uncomfortable as I did. There’s only one way for me to respond. “Thank you for telling me,” I say.

He nods his head, and we both drink from our bottles. We’re silent for a few moments, and I let my eyes wander over the crowd, trying to see what he sees. I’ve always liked The Dragon’s Arms, because it’s got an open-to-anything vibe. The crowd is made up of all types, from glittering twinks to bears and everything in between and beyond. It’s just so unapologetically _queer_. Tonight, the lights strobe red, gold, and pink over the mass of bodies as it rises and falls with the pulse of the dance song. I wonder what Draco thinks of the boys who dance on raised platforms, wearing clinging gold shorts, their chests shimmering with glitter? The burly men in leather, the drag queens? What kind of bodies do his eyes rest on? The bodies that are all muscle, glistening with sweat under the lights? The bodies that are more like mine, slightly feminine—skinny and soft, except where bones jut at the wrists and ribs and hips? I’ve been losing myself in crowds like this for more than ten years, because it’s the only place where I feel like I don’t stand out. Where I _fit in_. 

I used to come here when I was eighteen, in the year that Ron went to the Auror Academy, Hermione and all our other friends went back to Hogwarts, and I stayed in London. Several nights a week, I’d stand in the corner and just watch, trying to figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. Coming out wasn’t something I’d ever felt safe enough to do before then—not in the Dursleys’ house, where anything different made you that much more of a freak, and not at Hogwarts, where I had the gaze of the Wizarding world trained on me. Ron says that witches and wizards don’t make a big deal about sexuality or gender, not in the same way that Muggles do. He claims that me coming out was only news because it was _me_. Luckily, by the time the outing had happened I had embraced that part of me. Draco may not be ashamed now, but somewhere along the line, Lucius Malfoy messed him up about his sexuality. I’m struck by the fact that, growing up, Draco and I were going through something so similar and never knew it.

“I wish I’d thought to go to a place like this,” he says. “Muggle, I mean. There’s a gay Wizarding pub that I’ve been to in Glasgow a few times, but it’s nothing like this. I guess I was nervous about venturing into the Muggle world on my own. It seems silly now.”

I wonder for a moment about his Muggle credit card, but I suppose that there are a lot less scary uses for it than going clubbing by oneself.

“I’ve been to all the clubs in London. The Muggle ones, anyway,” I say, leaning an elbow on the tabletop and resting my cheek on my palm. I observe him for a moment, before I just say, _Fuck it_. “I can show you around. If you like.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” I say, though that’s not entirely true. It makes no sense, but even though I know that I really, really shouldn’t be, I can’t deny that I’m attracted to him. “I want to.”

He doesn’t respond, and instead tips his head back to finish his beer. He turns his empty bottle upside down. “Want another?” he says. 

I’ve not even finished my first drink, but I shrug. “Sure,” I say.

As I watch him walk to the bar, running his palms against his thighs, I wonder about everything that Draco’s not saying. There’s a whole other conversation happening in his silences. Talking with Draco makes me feel alternately hopped up with excitement when he shares something personal, and twitching with nerves each time he avoids my questions. I need to get to the dance floor, to let myself be touched by the throng of moving bodies, to push the excitement and the nerves out until the physical takes over. I lower the power of the spell around our table and let the music fill my body. I’m moving up and down and feeling giddy again when he comes back with a saltshaker tucked into the pocket of his tee shirt, lime wedges between his fingers, plus two shots of tequila and two pints of lager all balanced precariously in his hands.

Gingerly, he sets the drinks upon our table. He seems to be studying the limes in his palm, and his face crunches in confusion. 

“I confess,” he says, “that I’m not entirely sure what to do with these.”

I laugh, and he levels me with a scowl. It’s a familiar look for him, and I find that I’m relieved to see a glimpse of the old snarly Malfoy.

“Sorry, sorry,” I say, holding up my palms. “But how did you even order these drinks if you don’t know what they are?”

“I asked the bartender what to get,” he says, pursing his lips and raising an eyebrow as if daring me to tease him.

I pluck one of the lime wedges from his hand, and balance it between my left thumb and forefinger. He studies me for a moment, before doing the same. I bite the inside of my cheek, and swallow a laugh. “Now lick the back of your hand.”

 _“Pardon?_ ”

Instead of answering, I keep my eyes on his as I raise my left hand to my mouth and slowly drag my tongue over my skin. I’m not sure if he’s aware that his own tongue darts out and wets his lips. “Now you,” I say.

“I feel ridiculous, Potter.”

“Relax, Malfoy. Muggles aren’t born knowing how to do shots either.”

His gaze is intense, but he nods and follows suit. I hold out my hand to him. “Now sprinkle the salt where we licked.” I gesture with my chin to the shaker still in his pocket. After we’re both salted, I say, “Now we lick the salt, drink the shot—that’s the tiny cup—in one go, fast as you can, then suck on the lime.”

“Are you taking the piss?”

“I’m doing it too, aren’t I?” He picks the shot glass up between two fingers, and it takes something fierce for me not to laugh. “Come on, now, on three.”

He counts under his breath. “Bottoms up,” I say, with a cheeky grin. I lick my hand, dip my head back, and down the shot. Straightening, I find that his glass is empty and his face squeezed in disgust. “The lime, the lime!” I say, this time not holding back the laugh. He rushes to comply, and I ignore my own chaser as I watch his full, heart-shaped lips wrap around the wedge of lime, his eyes closed. “Now drink some of your beer, quick.” His hand gropes for his pint, and I push it towards his fingers. I shift in place; my tight jeans are uncomfortably tighter just at the sight of an uptight Draco Malfoy doing a shot of tequila.

His exhales, blowing air out through his lips. His pale skin is pinking up, probably from the alcohol, and I have to fight the urge to press my fingers to his cheek. “That was foul,” he says.

“You ordered it,” I laugh. He laughs too.

I watch the lights turn his pale skin and white hair red, then gold, then pink. I can’t seem to stop smiling, and I realise that somehow, I am _comfortable_. As terrible as I felt in my own home surrounded by a group of wizards who used to be my friends, in this gay bar, I have always been myself and, for whatever reason, I want to share this place, this _me_ with Draco.

“I want to dance,” I say. “Come with?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll watch.”

I take a few sips of my pint. “Okay,” I say, and then step away from the table.

When I dance, I usually try to fit myself as close as possible into the centre of the crowd, to subsume myself in the throng of bodies. Tonight, however, I stick to the edges, facing outward, toward Draco. I close my eyes as my body responds to the music. Raising my hands, the buzz that’s been building since Draco stepped onto Grimmauld’s balcony rushes into my palms. The music is bubbling pop, but it hardly matters—I’m dancing to a feeling. Other bodies connect with mine—with my shoulders, my arse, my hips—but, tonight, I hardly notice these Muggles. They’re not pretty eyes or wet lips, they’re not a cock to suck in the loo. They’re not Draco. 

My eyes are still closed, but I know that he’s looking at me. More than that, I can feel his magic touching me, tracing the dark lines of the bramble of roses winding up my arm. I remember reading in one of the gay Wizard romance novels that Hermione picks up for me from Tomes and Scrolls whenever she’s in Hogsmeade, that soul mates can feel each other’s magic. I know those books are rubbish, and that I’m probably imagining it now, but my body tingles at every lick of his magic on my skin. I’m hot, this time pleasantly so, and I pull my shirt over my head and tuck a bit of it into my back pocket. Down the right side of my chest and wrapping around my hip is a splash of bright paint, a gem-hued watercolour Pollock out of which burst branches of pink cherry blossoms and stems of purple lavender. Draco’s magic curls around my waist, resting there like a warm palm, before trailing over my belly, ghosting over the cherry blossom petals and lavender spikes blooming on my chest. _You’re beautiful_ , his magic says.

I dance and dance and dance.

A real hand slips around my waist, resting over my belly, fingers touching the band of my jeans. The hand’s body presses up close behind me. It’s just a Muggle, but I keep my eyes shut and pretend it’s Draco dancing with me. We move together. I am boneless, melting into the body’s hard chest as I let him pull me into him, our bodies thrusting to the pulse of a thrumming song. Suddenly, fingers and magic dig into my slick, soft side, wrenching me away from the man so that I fall into Draco’s chest. I take a small step back, but steady myself with hands on his shoulders. I can’t quite read the look in his eyes, but he’s breathing hard. His fingers flex their grip possessively before pulling me a little closer so that we’re chest to chest. Not entirely sure if I should, I slide my arms up his shoulders and around his neck. His arms encircle me, and he places his hands in the dip of my lower back, fingers grazing the curve of my arse. 

The feel of his skin against mine sends another rush through my body. The music soars, and I soar with it. I keep my waist angled away from him, because I don’t want him to know that I’m hard. I’m confused because I want him, but I’m also not exactly sure what it is I want. A fuck in the loo? More? The fact that I don’t know the answer to that question scares me. For me, the answer has never been more complicated than sex. I rest my cheek on his warm, soft shoulder, press my nose into his neck and inhale the musky, spicy scent of him. I focus on the fluttering movement of my heart and the way Draco’s chest moves rapidly up and down. We’re standing there for a long time, mostly still, but I can feel the music vibrating through my body, pumping. Occasionally, we’re pushed closer together by the pulsating crowd. Finally, when he seems to have got his breathing under control, he says something into the shell of my ear. 

“I want to get out of here.”

“Okay,” I say, smiling against his skin. I press back against his hands that rest possessively over my bum.

“I want to see where you work. The Muggle shop.”

“Huh?” I blink, looking up at him. “It’s closed.”

“I figured. Can’t you get in after hours?”

“Um, yeah, I suppose.” I’m confused, though I remember Draco bringing up the bookshop when we were back at Grimmauld. It makes no sense, but I can’t help wonder if this was somehow on his agenda all along—if he actually _has_ an agenda. It occurs to me that, while this has stopped feeling like a game for me, perhaps Draco is still playing. I shrug. There’s only one way to find out. “Yeah, okay,” I say, “let’s go. We can Apparate from the loo.”

I take his hand and pull us towards the toilets, which, for once, are unoccupied. We could have just gone back to the alley three blocks over, but I want the image of us pressed together in a tiny stall for later, when I’m alone. 

I grab onto Draco’s shoulder. “Ready?” I say.

He nods, and with an audible _pop_ , we are gone.

 

_Torch Books_

I drop us directly into the front room of Torch Books. I breathe a sigh of relief that the lights are off, as it means that Aggie, my boss, isn’t here after hours doing inventory or avoiding her girlfriend. I’ve never even performed magic at work, and now I’ve risked violating the Statute of Secrecy by Apparating into the shop. I duck behind the counter to shut off the alarm system before it has a chance to sound. I realise that I’m still shirtless—which is just about as bizarre as the fact that I’m here with Draco Malfoy—and swiftly pull on my tee.

“Where are we?” Draco asks as he flicks his wand, which I haven’t seen all night, and says, “ _Lumos_.”

“Put that out!” I say. He mutters _nox_ and the room is dark again. I’ve worked in this shop for six years, and can easily navigate it in the dark. I take his wrist in my hand and lead him through the labyrinth of tall shelves that make up the shopfront and down the step into the children’s reading room, my favourite place in Torch Books. I click on the lamp next to the overstuffed red couch, and push him into the seat.

“Where are we?” 

I look around the small, cosy room, each wall lined with colourful books, and try to figure out the answer to that question. Sanctuary. The one place in the Muggle world—other than the clubs—that offered me escape in the years after the war. The children’s reading room is small and stuffed to the brim with books and comfortable furniture, but warm and bright in a way that the cramped room I lived in as a child never was. Perhaps that’s why I like it so much—because I can sit in here and imagine that I had a close, safe retreat as a child that was the opposite of my cold, dark cupboard. I realise that I can’t tell him that. I’ve given him too much tonight already, and I’m not used to giving myself at all. I don’t know how I ended up here. The club was my idea, but, coming here, I think I’ve lost control of the situation. I’m suddenly feeling very tired. “Torch Books,” I say instead of the more complicated answer. “Camden Town. London.”

“I know where Camden Town is,” he says.

“Good for you.” I sigh. “Budge over.” I squeeze next to him on the little red couch, and look at our legs, which are almost pressing together. Mine, skinny in faded denims with a tear in the thigh, and his much wider in neat, starched slacks. I feel an urge to put my hand on his thigh and run it down his leg. Instead, I toe off my trainers, draw my knees up to my chest, wrap my arms around my legs, and bring my feet to the edge of the couch. I roll my eyes at myself, because I’d forgotten about my socks, which are light blue and decorated with red hearts. At least they don’t need darning. 

“Nice socks,” he says. I wiggle my toes for him. “What’s a torch book?”

I laugh. “They’re two separate things. A torch and a book. A torch is a Muggle portable light, like a candle or a _lumos_.” I point to the swinging sign that hangs in the archway dividing the children’s reading room from the rest of the shop. The wooden placard depicts a child inside a sheet-tent reading by torchlight. It’s the same logo that hangs outside the shop and decorates our business cards.

“Did you use a torch to read when you were a child?” he says.

The simple answer to his question is yes, but the more honest answer leads us onto a path that I’m not sure I’m ready to go down.

“I don’t know what you want from me, Draco.”

“Want?”

“Yes, _want_. Earlier tonight, I thought that you happened upon me on the balcony. But you said you asked Hermione about me, and seemed bothered by the fact that I hadn’t asked her about you.” I turn to him. He’s staring at his knees, his fringe fallen down into his eyes. I’m struck by the fact that his changed appearance, his looking so much like a _man_ rather than a boy, has made it easy until now for me to separate this Draco from the one I knew at Hogwarts, to set aside all the things that he did at school. But right now, his cheeks pink and hair ruffled, there’s something so boyish about him, and I can’t quite distinguish between the two people. I’m not sure what Draco wants from me, but I realise that I still want _him_ , and I’ll have to deal with the terrible history between us at some point. “I don’t know, Draco, I guess I’m wondering if you came out to the balcony looking for me. If you’re just making small talk now, or whether there’s something specific that you want?”

I watch him as he turns his arm so that his Mark is on display, before tucking it into his side.

“Nothing. I don’t want anything from you, Potter.”

“I don’t believe you.”

His blush spreads to his neck, and he’s clenching his hands into fists.

“I want to know you,” he says.

Even though I’d guessed as much, his confession still seems improbable. It’s been such a long time since anyone new has expressed an interest in really knowing me. He looks embarrassed enough that he must be telling the truth, though, so I decide to take him at face value.

“Does that go both ways? What if I want to know you?”

“Do you?”

 _Yes_. “I don’t know.”

He seems to deflate, but looks resigned. He nods his head.

“You want to know about this place?” He nods again. “Fine. Tell me something about yourself first.”

“Like a bribe?”

I roll my eyes. “Not like a bribe, idiot. Like _sharing_.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you want to tell me.”

“I came out onto the balcony looking for you. Now your turn. Why do you work here?”

“Not so fast.”

“Fine.” His hands clench around his knees, his knuckles white. “Fine. Tonight isn’t the first time I’ve come here. Hermione told me the name of the shop about a year ago. After the article.” He raises his brows a little, eyes flitting to mine, confirming that I know exactly which article he’s talking about. His eyes drop back to his hands in his lap. “I’ve been six times. I stood outside, and could see you through the window at the till, but I never came in.”

“Why?”

“I’m a coward. Your turn. Why do you work here?”

I could push him, but decide not to for now. I draw in my breath, and say, “I don’t exactly know where to start.” I look around the room, at the books, hundreds of which I’ve read—many of them here, in this room. My eyes fall again on the sign hanging in the archway. “Maybe with your question about the torch. You might not know this, but I lived with Muggle relatives, my aunt and uncle, before I came to Hogwarts. They were pretty strict, and my aunt used to remove the light bulb from my cupb—from my room before bed. So I wouldn’t stay up past my bedtime. Sometimes, when I was able to get my hands on a book, I’d read by torchlight. When I found this place and saw the sign, I liked it. It reminded me of something good from my childhood, those stolen moments in the middle of the night. Plus, it had a rainbow flag hanging outside, which is a kind of Muggle symbol for queer people. It seemed like I should go in.”

“That’s very important to you, isn’t it? Going to queer places. Like the clubs? This shop?” Draco looks a bit nervous. He’s not meeting my gaze, and his finger is tracing a circle in the arm of the couch.

“Yes. I said that my aunt and uncle were very strict, and that extended to most areas of my life. If I couldn’t choose my clothes, then I especially couldn’t ‘choose’ to be gay. When I found out I was a wizard, I thought that suddenly everything would be different. My first time in the Wizarding world, I went to Diagon Alley. When I met you, actually. In Madam Malkin’s.”

“That was your first time seeing other wizards?”

“Yes,” I say. It strikes me for the first time that Draco was there for such an important moment in my life. “Anyway, it just seemed so _weird_ to me, in an awesome way. All my life, my aunt and uncle told me that anything weird or different made you a freak, but here I was in a place so weird, so _freaky_ , I couldn’t even have imagined it.”

“But you left the Wizarding world…”

“Yeah.” I put my head on my knees, and study Draco’s face. His brows are drawn together, his eyes crinkled at the corners in confusion. He looks like he’s trying to figure me out, but finding me a conundrum. “Turns out, my aunt and uncle’s expectations of me were nothing compared to those of the members of the Wizarding world. Of Dumbledore.” 

At the mention of Dumbledore, Draco’s shoulders become rigid, his neck taut. I wonder if he’s going to ask me about him. “And the clubs, this shop… you don’t feel the pressure of those expectations here?”

“It’s complicated, because those pressures don’t exist in the Muggle world. They don’t know who I am. I can be whoever I want.”

“Except a wizard.”

“Yeah, except a wizard.” Back on the balcony, I’d wondered if Draco saw me as fitting in neither the Muggle nor the Wizarding world. It’s something that I’ve thought about for a long time without ever coming up with a solution. “But I didn’t know how to be queer in the Wizarding world. Or, _openly_ queer, and that was more important.”

“But you came out in _The Prophet_.”

“After ten years of being out in the Muggle world. I wouldn’t have been able to right after the war, not when I couldn’t cope with even the memories of being ‘The Chosen One.’ If that article had happened when I was eighteen, if Rita Skeeter had taken that from me then… I don’t know what I would have done.” 

“But it’s important to you now, to be out? People knowing that you’re gay?”

“For me it is. I spent a lot of time in the clubs after the war, figuring myself out. Where I fit in, how I wanted to look, how I wanted other people to see me. The first time I put Hermione’s eyeliner on and went to The Dragon’s Arms, I looked at myself in the mirror in the loo. It was like a different person was staring back at me, but at the same time, I also looked more like _me_ than I ever had before. Every time I go to the club, it’s like I’m saying _fuck you_ to those expectations, even if no one from the Wizarding world sees me.”

“I admire you, Harry. You’re a very brave man.” Draco’s face is melancholic, and the implication behind his words is clear—if I am brave, then he is not. “But I’ve always known that. I wish…”

“Draco,” I start, but I’m not exactly sure what to say without pushing him in a way that I sense he’s not ready to be pushed. “Everyone comes out in their own time. When it’s right for them.”

“Yeah.” He gives me a sad smile, shrugs. “But it’s important to you.” 

“I didn’t mean that you—”

“Anyway,” he says, cutting me off. One corner of him mouth tilts up in a half-smile, which I take as an apology for changing the subject. “Your childhood, Harry, the way you talk about it… It doesn’t seem like you have a lot of happy memories.”

I look into his eyes. They’re clear and wide, nothing like the calculating stare he wore at Hogwarts. I see concern in the small crease between his brows, in the slight purse of his lips. I remember how he mentioned his own childhood, how it had seemed like we shared similar experiences. The idea that Draco feels the same connection between us makes me want to trust him. “I don’t,” I say. “Your turn to share.”

He leans forward, angling his body toward mine, and opens his mouth as if to object, but then nods. “Okay,” he says. He takes a breath, stalling. “Okay. Wanting to say ‘fuck you’ to the expectations of the Wizarding world. I can relate.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. I’m not sure how much you know about my position in the Wizarding world these days.”

“Um, Hermione mentioned that you’ve had a difficult time.” I blush at admitting that Hermione and I have talked about him, but he just nods in response.

“It hasn’t been easy,” he says. “And at first, I didn’t expect anything different. I knew that I was lucky not to be locked in Azkaban, and I deserved whatever hexes or insults I got. But even four years after the war, when I started my Residency at Mungo’s, it wasn’t much better.” 

His eyes search mine, perhaps trying to figure out if I think the crimes he committed during the war justified hexes in the streets. The idea that I’d ever be okay with that kind of treatment hurts. I mean, I _died_ to stop that prejudice in the Wizarding world. But then I remember the animosity between us in school. Draco was a bully, sure, but I’m not proud of my own behaviour. I did testify for him and his mother. The events of our terrible sixth year had shown me that he’d stopped thinking of being a Death Eater as a privilege; I knew that he wasn’t his father and didn’t deserve Azkaban. But there was still a lot of bad blood between us. It’s not as if that blood is all washed away, but it would be ridiculous to pretend that I’m not interested in moving on now. I give him a small smile of encouragement, and his eyes widen. 

“Go on,” I say.

“Okay. So, um, while I was at the Derwent Academy, I lived in a flat in Muggle London. I tried to keep my head down as much as possible. I didn’t socialize with any classmates, except Hermione and Padma, and even then never in London. I just wanted to do something _good_ with my life for once. But when I started at Mungo’s, and patients refused to have me in the room or I was hexed entering the building… I’d had enough. I moved from my hideaway in the Muggle world to the most conspicuous place I could think of, High Street in Hogsmeade.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” he says with a shrug. “I didn’t think of it in these terms at the time, but I guess it was my own ‘fuck you’ to the Wizarding world. I realised that they were going to hate me no matter what, so I might as well make them as uncomfortable as possible. Saying that out loud… It feels wrong. It’s not like they owed me anything.”

“Draco, you were acquitted by the Wizengamot.”

“That doesn’t mean that I didn’t do anything wrong.” 

“I’m not saying that…” There’s an angry look in Draco’s eyes, but I can tell by the way he grips his left forearm, fingernails digging into his Dark Mark, that his anger is directed at himself. Very slowly, I place my hand over his. His fingers relax, but he doesn’t release his arm. I wait for him to look me in the eye before continuing. “You were a teenager during the war.”

“Yes, but I should have—” He breaks off, letting out a frustrated sound. “I can’t, Harry. I can’t.”

“It’s okay.” I give his fingers a gentle squeeze.

“Can I ask you another?”

“Sure.”

“I see why you came into this shop as a customer, but I still don’t understand how you ended up working here.”

I sigh. I release his hand, and drop my head against the back of the couch. I stare at the mottled ceiling. Unless I stick to half-truths, I can’t answer him without talking about the Dursleys, about what went on in their house. _How much more of myself do I want to give him?_ I stretch my legs out, and push myself from my seat. I know exactly where the book is, and move without thinking to retrieve it from its place on the shelf. I hand him the worn copy of _Grey Mouse and the Boy_. I sit back on the couch, curled up on my side facing him, my knees touching his thighs.

“This is a book I read as a child. My favourite book.”

I watch as he gently, almost reverently runs his hands over the cover of the book, as if trying to glean something about it—or _me_ —by touch. “Why?” he says. I can’t help but smile a bit at his question, because anyone else might ask what the novel is about, but Draco’s question is aimed at what the book can tell him about me. 

“I suppose it’s because I never read the ending.”

“A book you never even finished was your favourite?” He raises a brow at me. “That explains a lot about your marks in school.”

“Har har.” I roll my eyes. “You’ve no idea what my marks were, unless Hermione’s been gossiping about more than my job. She does have all of Ron’s and my school reports memorized, after all,” I say with a laugh. “For your information, I would have loved to finish the story, but the book had been my cousin Dudley’s first, and he didn’t like the ending. He tore it in two pieces, and I only managed to rescue one half from the bin before my uncle found me going through the garbage.” 

“You had to go through the bin to find something to read?”

I shrug. Draco twists in his seat, placing the book on the cushions between us. “When we met,” he says. “In Madam Malkin’s. Your clothes were about three sizes too big, and they were patched all over.” He leans closer, and his fingers ghost over my shoulder. “And that never changed when we were at school.”

“No, it didn’t.” I close my eyes, turn my head away, into the crook of my arm. I feel naked in front of him, watched and understood in a way that makes me feel special and uncomfortable at the same time.

“Harry,” he says. My name on his lips feels like a spell, and I can’t help but look at him. I reach out to grip his upper arm, feel his triceps jump under my palm. “Please, tell me why you loved that story so much?”

“It was about this lonely boy whose only friend was a little grey mouse. The mouse could talk, but the boy was the only one who could hear him. Even the other mice who lived in the walls of the boy's house couldn’t understand him.”

“The mouse was his familiar,” Draco says. “Like wizards have.”

I smile, think of Hedwig for a moment. “Yes, I suppose. Except even wizards don’t have talking mice.” 

“You can talk to snakes. Maybe some wizards can talk to mice.”

“It’s a nice thought,” I say, though I’m suddenly feeling incredibly sad. I imagine what my childhood might have been like if I’d had a pet snake to chat to. I don’t say anything, but Draco seems to understand, or he’s at least able to read the downturned corners of my mouth. He moves his hand to the nape of my neck, squeezes gently. “Anyway, I don’t know if the boy was a wizard, but his mouse talked a lot. He especially liked to tell stories. Every night, he’d climb onto the boy’s pillow and whisper his stories into the boy’s ear for hours. I envied them both. Having someone to talk to and listen to…”

“You were lonely.”

It’s not a question, but I nod my head anyway. Draco is the first person that I’ve told about this book, and I wonder if I’ve still never found that closeness I longed for as a child, even with Hermione and Ron. I think about going home, putting my head on my cold pillow. There’s never been a warm mouth there to whisper into my ear. I feel tears welling in my eyes, and Draco slides his fingers into the cropped hair at the base of my skull. I feel agitated, like I need to lean back into his touch and also get away. He seems to sense my distress, because he removes his fingers from my hair. He’s still close, but I breathe a little easier.

“Are you messing me about?” I say.

“No. _Gods_ no, I’m really not.”

“Okay,” I say. I _want_ to believe him, want to trust him, but I don’t know if I can. I draw in a deep breath. “Yeah, so, I found this shop about four years after the war. When Teddy started school, and I suddenly had my days free.” 

“My cousin Teddy.”

I know that Hermione’s told Draco about Teddy, but I answer him as if he’s asked a question. “Yeah. He’s my godson.” I study him for a moment. I know that Draco has never met his cousin, but his face is suddenly blank, so that I can’t tell how he feels about it. “When he was a baby, I used to watch him most days. Your aunt would bring him ‘round my place, and he’d stay with me through tea. He lives with me now, though he’s just started Hogwarts.”

I pause a moment, waiting to see how Draco responds. I imagine him asking me to introduce him to Teddy over winter hols, and then I realise how ridiculous I’m being. That’s two months away. _This is just one night_ , I tell myself.

“Go on,” he says.

“I’d been frittering my days away as a customer here for a few months when I found the book. I hadn’t been looking for it. Actually, I’d forgotten all about it. But I sat on this couch, and read the thing, start to finish this time.”

“And you were disappointed? 

“In the final chapter, the boy takes Grey Mouse to the park, and they meet a little girl who can also understand him. The mouse decides that he’d like a new friend, one who hasn't heard all of his stories already. So he goes off to live with the girl.”

“And then what? The boy finds a human friend?”

“No, that’s it. The boy never sees Grey Mouse again. He goes home alone and cries. That night, he asks his stepmother to tell him a story, and she says no.”

“Harry…”

“I couldn’t believe it. As a kid, I'd read the first half of that book over and over again, and then... No wonder Dudley tore it in two pieces. I can’t imagine if I had read that when I was locked all alone in my cupboard.” 

Draco’s body seems to snap to attention. “Your cupboard?” 

_Shite_. “I didn't mean to say that.”

“You don't have to tell me about it, but you can.” My eyes drop to his hand where it hovers between around my elbow, not quite touching. “I want to hear.”

“I've never told anyone about this. Not even Ron and Hermione. They know it was bad, but not the details. Do you understand what I'm saying? I don't even understand it. I want to tell you something that I've been too ashamed to tell the people I'm closest to in the world.”

“You can trust me.” I feel a nervous laugh bubbling in my chest at the idea that I can trust Draco Malfoy—the boy who sold fake stories about me to _The Prophet_ when we were in school—with one of my biggest secrets. I look into the serious eyes of the man before me, so close that I can feel his breath on my lips, and the laugh bursts out though I’ve forgotten what’s supposed to be funny about this situation. He gives me a wry smile. “I know, I can hardly believe it myself, but you can trust me, Harry. You can.” 

“Okay,” I say. I shift as away far as I can on the couch, still facing him, but with my legs pulled to my chest as a barrier. My toes touch his knees, and he moves his palm to my foot.

“Can I?” he says.

I nod, and he wraps his warm fingers around my bare ankle. I focus on that touch, rather than his face. “As you’ve probably gathered, my childhood wasn’t great. My aunt and uncle didn’t love me, didn’t even like me. I was little more than a House-Elf to them. They fed and clothed me, but just barely. I slept on a mat in a cupboard under the stairs, where they locked me every night. They’d leave me in there so long, that sometimes I’d wet myself. They were so angry about the little that they were compelled to do for me… They told me that my parents were drunks who killed themselves in a car wreck. And that they nearly killed me in the same crash.” I push up the wave of curling fringe that covers my forehead, touch the lightning bolt scar. 

“Harry…”

“No, let me finish,” I say, but I’m not sure where to go from here. 

All the way back to the shame that I felt upon entering the Wizarding world, thinking that everyone could see that I’d never been loved just by the look of my shabby clothes and scrawny body? To the food that I’d wrap in a cloth serviette after each meal in the Great Hall to squirrel away in my trunk in the dorms? Do I explain how I slept with my wand lit, resting on my pillow, for the first three years of school, because the small space inside my closed bed hangings felt too much like my cupboard? Should I tell him that the first hugs from an adult that I remember were all from Mrs Weasley? Or that Dumbledore, who’d made me feel so special, _favoured_ , had been teaching me to die? 

Dumbledore said that the power I had over Voldemort was love, but he was wrong. I was able to defeat him, to walk to my death, because I knew that my life didn’t really matter. And I’ve been hiding from that knowledge ever since. I’ve found love, of course. Hermione and I love each other fiercely, like a brother and a sister. And I love Teddy more than life itself. But I've never known what it's like to be truly admired as more than a soldier, a symbol. I've never been the most important person to anyone. Never a lover. Just a body to fuck—rarely more than once. I want to tell Draco these things, but I don’t know if it’s _me_ or the lonely boy in the cupboard who needs to confess. More than anything, I’m afraid that I’m still the boy in the cupboard and that won’t be enough for him. For anyone. I put my face in my hands, and my cheeks are wet. I don’t know how I’ve got to this point, crying my eyes out in front of Draco Malfoy in my place of work. I wonder if it’s too late to go back to The Dragon’s Arms and offer to suck his cock in the loo.

“The truth is,” I say, “the boy in the story reminded me of myself in that cupboard without a friend in the world. I finished the book, sitting on this couch, and burst into tears. Aggie, she’s my boss, came over, handed me a tissue and a cup of tea, and asked me if I wanted a job, though I've never understood why. That was six years ago. I think that answers your question? Also, I get a really good discount on books, which comes in handy when buying for Hermione.” I try to force a laugh, but my voice breaks.

Draco leans a little closer, but hesitates, as though he wants more physical contact but isn’t sure if he’s allowed. “Thank you for telling me,” he says.

His words remind me that I said the same thing to him in The Dragon’s Arms, when he talked about his father. “Do you want to tell me anything?” I say. “You mentioned earlier about your father, making you keep things private? About being gay?”

“Harry, I—” He removes his hand from my ankle, straightening up and facing forward. He suddenly looks as tense as he did when he first came out to the balcony, when we first entered the club. A shiver of fear runs up my spine. “My childhood, it wasn’t… That is—” He breaks off again, looks at me with a desperate gleam in his eye. I bring my palm to his cheek, and he closes his eyes for a few seconds before continuing. “There are things that I have to tell you, if we are to keep going. I mean, if you want—”

“I want.”

“Okay,” he says. He takes a deep breath. “Okay, good. But I just want this one night, before I tell you. One perfect night. I don’t want my… I don’t want _him_ to be a part of it at all. Is that okay?” I nod, though I wish he’d talk to me. This night feels surprising, important, but perfect? I’ve got tears on my face, and Draco has a secret big enough that he thinks it will make things worse than they’ve already been. I don’t see how anything can be perfect between us if he can’t give me the trust that I’ve given him, but I can wait for perfect. “I’ll tell you, I promise. Maybe tomorrow? Or we can have dinner next week?”

“Tomorrow’s good.”

He smiles, and lets out a relieved sounding sigh. “Can I kiss you?” he says. “I really want to.”

“Yes,” I say.

He pushes me back against the arm of the couch, and brings a hand to my cheek, his index finger rubbing a gentle circle into the soft spot behind my ear. I lean into his touch, and realise that my eyes are still leaking. _What are you doing to me?_ I wonder. I drop one foot to the floor and he kneels in the space between my legs, arching his long torso over my body, one hand bracing against the arm of the couch. He presses his nose to mine. It’s so tender. I bring my hands to his shoulders, dig my fingers into his flesh. _Are you real?_ He shifts his face so that our lips are touching lightly. I dip my head back, pull him to me, open my mouth to him and he kisses me hard, hard, hard. My lips burn from the scruff on his face, and I know that I'll feel this kiss tomorrow. His hand drops to my shoulder, and a crackle of warm magic rushes through his palm to my skin. Draco’s lips still, and he pulls away. I groan in protest, slipping my arms around his waist to hold him to me.

“Harry, look…” I twist my neck to see my shoulder, where his fingers are running over my skin, sending curls of warmth tingling down my arm. “Your tattoo…”

I blink, sure that I must be seeing things. The closed bud of my blush-red rose has opened— _bloomed_ —the now-vermilion petals quivering each time that his fingers caress my skin. It's a Muggle tattoo—it shouldn't be affected by magic. “That’s impossible.”

“ _You're_ impossible,” he says. Draco takes my face in his hands, which are trembling. He kisses the corners of my eyes, the line of my jaw, the tip of my nose to the spot between my brows. He leans into me, hard, pressing his lips to my lips. I breathe him in, pull his tongue into my mouth.

His chest is heavy against mine, and the feeling of being weighted down is glorious. I can't run anywhere; I can't hide.

  



	2. Day Two

When Harry was eight years old, he told his aunt that he was in love with Ira Ben Asher, a boy in his class at school. He didn’t normally tell his aunt things like that, but the sight of Ira’s wide smile and large white teeth had made him a bit moony. The declaration slipped unbidden from his lips. Aunt Petunia informed him that he was mistaken, and to never, ever let his uncle hear him say anything about it, or any other boy. She sent him to his cupboard without dinner, telling Uncle Vernon that he had broken the vase Aunt Marge had given them for their crystal wedding anniversary. His uncle had pulled Harry from sleep, taken down his pants, and spanked him until his bottom welted. As he cried into Uncle Vernon’s wool trousers, Harry couldn’t be sure what exactly he was being punished for.

* * *

_Grimmauld Place_

I wake slowly. My body is loose, jointless, muscles pleasantly jellied. I feel like I’ve slept a thousand years. I realise that for the first time in a long time, I am well rested. I bring my hand to the spot behind my ear where Draco’s finger rubbed a gentle circle, drag my thumb across my lips, still a little burnt, tingling from his stubble. I wish that we’d done more than kiss last night, but Draco Aparated me home, kissed me into the front door, and then said goodnight. Usually, I have to force myself from my bed, to face the day, but, as I let out a long, easy breath, I know that at least some of the things that usually press down upon me, choke me, are gone, given to Draco. I want to do the same for him; I hope he'll let me. Without hesitation, I push back the duvet and swing my feet to the floor. I spare myself a moment to rest my cheek on my shoulder, over the rose tattoo that’s still in bloom. I imagine that I can feel his fingers there.

I dress and make my way to the basement for breakfast. Hermione’s early edition of _The Prophet_ is scattered over the table, her half-eaten breakfast abandoned. I chuckle. It’s not unusual for inspiration to strike Hermione at odd moments, propelling her to her lab to adjust a potion or cross-reference midnight calculations against an old issue of _Wand & Bone_ or _Potioneers_. I nick a piece of cold toast from Hermione’s plate, fill her purple Le Creuset kettle with water and place it on the ancient aga’s boiling plate.

I’m in one of my rare moods to see what nonsense _The Prophet_ is up to, so I gather up the paper while I wait for the water for my tea. Sifting through the sections, I catch on a picture of Draco in the society pages. It’s an old photograph of him in crisp, black dress robes, but I recognise it from the night that he and Hermione were awarded the Damocles Prize for Potions Arts. I can’t help but laugh at myself, because the very fact that I recognise what Draco wore to an event six months ago, an event that I didn’t even attend, says a lot. I can tell by the stiffness in his shoulders that he’s not comfortable, but he’s handsome regardless. I trace the hard angles of his jaw with my finger before my eyes drop to the headline. _Former Death Eater Draco Malfoy Has an Even Bigger Secret: He Was Born a Girl_.

“Shite,” I say. I hear the kettle whistling, but I sit down at the table and read the story, which, of course, is written by Rita fucking Skeeter.

> It seems that former member of the Dark Army, Draco Malfoy, has been hiding more than a mask and Death Eater robes in his closet! With a bit of elbow grease, reputable _Prophet_ researchers were able to uncover a second history for the Malfoy heir. It turns out that Malfoy, who until age eleven resided in Paris, France, where his father, Lucius Malfoy, served as ambassador at the British Magical embassy, was born not Draco, but rather Delphinia Malfoy!
> 
> Malfoy is currently employed in the Experimental Potions department at St Mungo’s Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries under the prestigious Dilys Derwent Research Fellowship. This publication’s interest in his activity was recently reignited when Malfoy and his St Mungo’s colleague, war hero Hermione Granger, made potions history after developing an affordable, easy-to-brew recipe for the highly volatile Wolfsbane potion. Rumour has it, the potion is to be evidence in a controversial bill to go before the Wizengamot in three months’ time that proposes abolishing restrictions on the employment of werewolves who agree to register with the Ministry. My readers will remember that Malfoy colluded with werewolves, such as the despicable Fenrir Greyback, when he was a member of Voldemort’s Dark Army. Apparently, he never severed those ties…
> 
> After Malfoy and Ms Granger declined an interview with _The Prophet_ , this reporter decided to do a little digging into his background. After all, what does he have to hide? As it turns out, quite a lot! According to our sources, Severus Snape, who at the time served as Potions Master at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, assisted the Malfoys in covering up Draco’s sex change and arranging his entry into England at age eleven to attend Hogwarts. We were unable to discover what, if any, procedures Malfoy has undergone to change his gender, but surely he will want to clear the air? Stay tuned for updates on this unfolding story…

“Fuck.” Hermione’s abandoned breakfast suddenly makes a lot more sense now, though I’m not sure if she knew that Draco was trans before the article. At The Dragon’s Arms, he’d said that the important people in his life knew about him. I’d assumed that he meant his sexual orientation, but perhaps not, or not _only_ that. I know that Hermione considers Draco a good friend, but I don’t know how Draco feels about _her_. Obviously, this is what he wouldn't tell me last night, after I’d confessed to him about the Dursleys’ abuse. There’s a niggling part of me that’s hurt that he didn’t share this, that _I_ wasn’t important enough to know, after I told him something that I’d never said to anyone else, but, special as it was, last night was just one night. Trust is a gift that I’d been willing to wait for. “Fuck,” I say again.

It was obvious how hard it’d been for Draco to share anything with me, and if that fucking cow has scared his cagey arse off with her article, I’m going to…well, I don’t know what I’ll do. The one thing I do know is, I have to fix this, I have to let him know that this doesn’t have to change anything between us. _Please don’t let this change anything_. Trouble is, I don’t know where he lives, and I don’t know if I can bring myself to go to St Mungo’s in search of him. 

I run the four flights from the basement to Grimmauld’s top most floor, to Sirius’s old bedroom. I haven’t been up here in a couple of years, but I don’t stop until I get to where Hermione’s owl, Petra, perches near the window, relieved to see that she’s home. I've never replaced Hedwig. Teddy has Sam, an eagle owl given to him by his grandmother for his tenth birthday, as per Black family tradition. He writes to me from Hogwarts three or four times a week and Sam waits for my reply. I sit down at the scroll top writing desk next to Petra’s perch, removing the glass weight holding down a stack of paper, and pull a Muggle biro from an old, chipped mug. And then nothing. I’m not sure what to say.

> Draco,
> 
> I saw the article, and I’m so sorry that this has happened to you. Can I see you? I'm at Grimmauld if you want to come through. Or send me your floo address and I’ll come to you.

I hesitate for a moment, but then continue. _In for a knut…_

> Wherever. I’ll come wherever. This doesn’t have to change anything between us. I know it’s not the same, but I do understand a little bit about what you’re going through, and how angry or sad you might be that the control over your own story has been taken away. We can talk about it or not—whatever you want. Anything I can do to help, I will. Anything. But, please, can I come to you?
> 
> \--Harry

My hands are trembling when I finish the letter. I know that what Draco is probably going through has nothing to do with me, but I have a sickening feeling that this is going to destroy whatever started happening between us last night. It’s selfish, I know, but I’m afraid for myself. I fold the paper and slip it into an envelope. I don’t have my own wax seal, so I use a piece of Spello-tape instead, and write _Draco Malfoy_ on the front of the envelope. Owls can usually find a person without an address, but it certainly helps for accuracy and speed. I’m counting on the fact that Petra’s probably delivered correspondence to Draco dozens of times. She reaches out a foot, and I place the letter between her talons, smooth my fingers over her crown. “Thank you, girl.” She gives me a little hoot, and then angles her body toward the open window. Petra is a barn owl, nothing like Hedwig really, but watching her pale body dip slightly and then sore, I feel a twinge of a sadness that’s never gone away.

I make my way to the parlour on the ground floor that we’ve converted into a sitting room, and curl up on the couch to wait. I know that Petra will find me when she returns, whether or not Draco gives her a response to my letter. I stare at the fire in the giant hearth, built especially to receive guests. If Draco decides to floo here, this is where he’ll arrive. I watch the flames dance, expecting— _hoping_ —to see them burn green, for what seems like hours before I feel Petra alight on my thigh. She’s carrying my letter in her beak. I can see my messy scrawl on the envelope, even before I reach out a hand, and she drops it into my palm. Petra releases her talons from my denims, and removes to perch atop the back of the couch. I sit up, and turn the letter over in my hands. The envelope has obviously been opened, because the Spello-tape no longer affixes to the paper. I pull out my letter, unfold it, and a small scrap of paper floats into my lap. I can’t help but worry. The fact that whatever Draco has to say can fit upon a piece of paper this small does not bode well. Petra gives a soft hoot, and nuzzles her heart shaped face into the back of my neck.

“Thank you, girl,” I say, before I pick Draco’s response up between shaking fingers.

> Potter,
> 
> Thank you for your kind words, though they are not necessary. Unfortunately, this changes everything between us. Please do not contact me again.
> 
> \--DM

“Fuck that,” I say, crumpling this little piece of wankery between my fingers, stuffing it and my letter in the back pocket of my jeans. Petra _hoo hoos_ a little louder than before, in a tone that I can only take to be sympathetic indignation. I cross to the porcelain dish of floo powder upon the hearth and toss a palmful into the flames, which flare green. I step off the hearthrug and into the fire, call out, “Granger, Suite 1237, Experimental Potions, St Mungo’s.”

 

_St Mungo’s_

I stumble into Hermione’s office, startling her from the medical charts spread out on her desk. I’m distracted for a moment when I notice that she’s wearing my old black Joy Division shirt, her lime green Healer’s robes strewn over the back of her chair. Under normal circumstances, I might laugh at the fact that someone as together as Hermione can’t seem to remember to do laundry—or even remember to ask me to do it for her.

“Harry! You’re in St Mungo’s!”

My eyes snap to the scroll floating over Hermione’s desk, dictation quill paused mid-sentence. To the paper airplane memo hovering in the air. To the magical window, displaying a summer scene. I take a deep breath, pulling in the odour of medical Potions. It’s the smell of Snape’s lab. The hospital wing. I cover my nose and mouth with my hand as it hits me. _I’m in St Mungo’s_. It’s like a fist to my chest, and it steals my breath. I double over, hands grabbling for my throat. I try to force my breath, but the ragged pull burns as it tears through my throat, and my heart hurts like a hand is squeezing it. _Oh Gods, I’m dying_. My heart is going to burst.

“Dying,” I manage to say.

“No, you’re not. You’re having a panic attack, Harry. Here, sit down,” she says, pushing me to her desk chair. “You’ve got to stop, calm down.”

But I can’t. My heart speeds up, beating like mad. _I shouldn’t be here_. I’m choking on air.

“Harry, Harry! Stop. Look at me,” Hermione says, placing her hands on my shoulders. My chin is pressed to my chest, but I roll my eyes up to meet her gaze. It seems to help, and I get down a breath, but my heart is still galloping, my hands are shaking, and I’m covered in sweat. I open my mouth to speak.

“No, Harry, don’t say anything. Just wait for the panic to pass.” 

I lean forward, and put my head in my hands, try to focus on the slow circles Hermione’s rubbing on my back instead of the blood throbbing in my temples. After what seems like several minutes, Hermione’s hand comes to a stop on my back, and I can breathe again. She hands me a glass of water, and waits for me to drink the entire thing before she speaks.

“You’re in St Mungo’s,” she says, the shock obvious in her tone.

“Yeah.”

I’ve not been here in years. Like anyone who goes into Medical Potions, Hermione’s a fully trained Healer and able to treat me at home if I get sick beyond the need of a simple Pepperup Potion. I wipe my upper lip, and let out a shaky exhalation. I’ve not felt this bad since just after the war, when I’d tried to go to Hogwarts. Like Hermione, I’d planned to do my NEWTs year after the war, had even gone as far as to accept my spot at Hogwarts and pack my trunk. But when we’d stood on the kerb outside 12 Grimmauld Place and put our wands out to signal the Knight Bus, I’d been brought to my knees. 

Images from the final battle rose up like bile. The Acromantulas’ hollow in the Forbidden Forest, where I’d last seen my parents and Sirius, the place where I’d died. Lupin and Tonks’ bodies laid out in the Great Hall. Blood. Blood on the walls, blood on my hands. Fire raging, Draco’s arms around my waist, his screams in my ear. Voldemort’s body. I’d die if I went back there. Die for real, this time. I threw up in the gutter, and had to rush back inside the house. 

Hermione’d offered to stay with me, to work with me to do our NEWTs via owl correspondence, but I’d refused. I’d never seen anyone who loved school as much as Hermione, and I couldn’t rob her of the first opportunity she had to experience a Wizarding education unhampered by the distraction of assisting me in the fight against Voldemort. I told her I’d be fine, but just couldn’t go back there. I’m not sure if she believed me, but she got on the Knight Bus. I watched her from the drawing room, watched her look back over her shoulder, wipe tears from her cheeks. I’d not been fine, not by a long shot. I’d barely gotten out of bed for months, and subsisted on take-away chips and kebabs. Then one morning, Andromeda showed up at my doorstep with Teddy, and I got my shite together, at least as far as I was able. To this day, I’m grateful that Hermione got on that bus. That she didn’t let me live with keeping her from the one thing that’d always made her truly happy.

I lean back in her chair, offer her the closest approximation to a smile that I can manage. The deepening frown on her face tells me that she’s not convinced.

“Harry, what are you doing here?”

“I came to see Draco.” 

“ _Draco_?" She raises her brows at me.

“Erm, yeah?”

“I don’t—” she starts, and then closes her mouth. She scrutinizes me, and I can see the clues adding up in her mind. “You and Draco both disappeared from the party at about the same time.”

“Um, yeah.” 

“And now you’re in St Mungo’s, where you haven’t been in ten years.” Hermione twists her wild curls into bun, holding it in place with her wand. It’s a move that usually means she’s on the verge of a breakthrough. 

“I really need to talk to him, Hermione. I owled him to see if I could help, but he refused to see me.”

“What exactly _happened_ between the two of you?”

“Didn’t Draco tell you anything about last night?”

“He mentioned that you you spoke, but we were a bit preoccupied discussing the article, which you’ve obviously read.”

“We did a lot more than talk, Hermione. A lot more. We kissed.” I can tell by the gobsmacked look on her face that whatever she imagined, it wasn’t a kiss. “We were going to see each other again, today. I really like him. A lot. And now fucking Rita Skeeter has ruined everything.”

“What do you mean ruined?

“See for yourself,” I say, pulling my letter and his crumpled response from my back pocket. Hermione takes both papers from me, and her eyes bounce over the words. When she unfolds Draco’s note, she shakes her head.

“Oh, Draco, you poor sod.” She sighs. “I suppose it’s safe to mention now, but he’s had feelings for you for a number of years. Probably since Hogwarts, but I never could get him to really talk about our time at school.”

“I gathered that much when he told me he’d basically been stalking me at work. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Hermione?”

She has the decency to blush. “Frankly, Harry, I didn’t think he’d have the courage to go in, so I didn’t see what harm it would do.”

“Yeah, well, that’s in the past. I need to see him. Do you know where he is?”

“He’s in the middle of a Potions trial, so he should be down the hall, in the main lab, but I really don’t think—”

“Thanks, Hermione.” 

“Harry, I’m happy for you both, but you need to let him cool off. This,” she says, holding up his crumpled note, “is what I like to call Classic Hogwarts Draco. As in, approach with caution, his bite is as bad as his bark. He’s changed a lot since school, but this is going to bring out the worst in him. This article… I’m afraid that he’s going to lash out at the nearest moving target, and it’ll be you.”

“Hermione, I know our situations aren’t the same, but I do understand what it’s like to have control taken from you.”

“It’s not about control, Harry. It’s about shame, his shame.”

“That he’s trans?”

“No, that he’s kept it a secret.”

“I don’t understand—”

“I know, Harry, but it’s not my place to say more. I’m just warning you that sometimes when Draco feels bad, he hurts other people instead of facing his own feelings.”

“He’s being an arsehole, yeah, but I can get through to him. I know it.”

“Harry…” I recognise pity when I see it. My gut twists, but I won’t believe that Draco’s done with me until he throws me out on my arse.

“I have to try, no matter what, Hermione. He’s—” I reach for something, anything to explain how much that one night with Draco meant to me. “I’ve never… He’s special, Hermione.”

She sighs, but nods her head. “Fine, but let me bring him here. He’s in the lab, and at this time of day there’s at least five or six Healers working. He’ll be that much worse with an audience.”

“Thanks, Hermione,” I say, and hug her. 

I stand in front of her desk, staring at the door. It’s several minutes later when Draco slips into the room, alone. Shutting the door, he leans back against the frame, his arms crossed in front of his chest. His skin looks ashen, and the acid colour of the buttoned up Healer’s robes he’s wearing does nothing for his pallor. There’s a day’s worth of growth over his jaw, and purple bruises under his eyes. I can tell by his stance and the closed off look on his face that this isn’t going to be easy.

“Draco,” I say.

His eyes widen. He looks a bit like a cornered animal, and a chill runs up my spine. 

“What are you doing here?” he says.

“I wanted to see how you are.”

“This is my place of work. It’s highly inappropriate for you to just show up here.”

“Well, you didn’t give me much choice!”

“I didn’t give you _any_ choice. I asked you not to contact me.”

“And why the fuck shouldn’t I?”

He winces. “I don’t want your pity, Potter!”

“Who said anything about pity?”

“Why else would you be here? You just want to play saviour—”

“I think you’ll find that I’ve retired from that job, Draco. Fuck, do you know how hard it was for me to come here? When exactly did I imply that you needed saving? Maybe I offered you support, but I never wanted to save you. I wanted to _date_ you, not rescue you!”

“I wasn't ready for you to know!”

“I'm sorry, but there's nothing I can do about that. It’s shitty that you were outed that way, but you didn’t have to treat me like shit. Not after everything.”

He steps away from the door, toward me, reaching out a hand, but then he stops, frozen. He shakes his head, moving back against the door. He puts his hands in the pockets of his Healer’s robes. “It was just one night,” he says, not meeting my eyes.

“Fuck you.”

“I’m sorry that you got attached, but—” 

“Why are you lying?” I ball my hands into fists. I know that I should leave, but I appear to have forgotten how to walk. I’m ashamed to feel tears in my eyes.

“Harry—”

“I shouldn’t have come here. I’ll go.” I avoid looking at him as I cross to the floo opposite Hermione’s desk. My hand is shaking so badly that I knock the dish of floo powder to the floor, breaking it in two and scattering the glittering dust over my shoes. “ _Fuck_.

“Harry…”

I kneel down and scoop up a handful of the slivery powder. I dash it into the flames.

“Wait, Harry. Just, wait! I’m sorry. You’re right. We need to talk, but not here. I can’t here.”

I don’t say anything, but I do turn around. I watch him as he moves to Hermione’s desk. He leans over, snags one of Hermione’s quills and a scrap of paper. I step up behind him, and I can’t help watching the way his robes pull tight over his broad shoulders. I want to rest my cheek there, press my nose into the skin of his neck, wrap my arms around his belly. _What’s wrong with me?_ He writes something in his neat, blocky script. I almost laugh, because it strikes me that Draco’s handwriting is very masculine.

“You know, that article doesn’t change the way I feel about you,” I say, because it occurs to me that maybe Draco doesn’t really understand how I see him. He stops writing, and his body goes very still. “You’re a man, a really fucking sexy man. I’m a gay man, you’re a gay man. I still want you, if you want me.” 

He straightens his back, and extends the paper to me. “This is the floo address for my flat in Hogsmeade, so you don’t have to Apparate onto the High Street. We can talk there, later. Maybe eight o’clock?” I open my palm, but don’t reach my arm out to take the paper. Instead, I make him step closer to me, drop his address in my hand. “Harry? Okay?”

“Okay, yes.”

He nods his head, and turns to go. At the last minute, he’s back in front of me, so close that I can feel his breath on my face. He presses a hard kiss to the corner of my mouth, hand trembling on my cheek. It seems like a long time before I remember to breathe, and by then he’s gone.

 

_Hogsmeade Village_

I step out into the sitting room in Draco’s flat. The room is warm and lit by the fire in the hearth, but there’s a shut up look about the place. My eyes fall to the thick envelope on the coffee table, and I immediately know that Draco’s not here, that he’s not going to meet me.

I can’t bring myself to pick up Draco’s letter from the table. I’m in no rush to read it. I don’t know what it says, but I know that it amounts to Draco being gone. Another person gone. 

I glance around the room. It’s ridiculously tidy, spartan even, and somehow I know that the state of the place isn’t just because Draco’s left. The sitting room contains a severe-looking couch, the coffee table, a side table and lamp, a bench press and a set of free weights, and two walls of bookshelves, which appear to be mostly Healing or Potions textbooks. There’s a photograph of Draco’s mother on one of the bookshelves, almost obscured by a thick book, as if he couldn’t bear to part with the picture but also didn’t want to look at it very often. 

I sit down on the couch, run my palms up and down my thighs. My hands feel numb and I’m a little dizzy. Something drops away from me—the hope I’d been clinging to all day. I tell myself that I don’t know what’s in that letter. That whatever it is, it doesn’t mean that Draco’s gone for good. I don’t manage to convince myself. 

Mechanically, I stand, step around the couch. The sitting room connects to a kitchen, and I cross through an archway, lighting the sconces on the walls with a flick of my wrist. I open all the cabinets, and am not surprised to see that even non-perishable food is gone. He’s got dishes to serve four people, but there’s an extra mug, green and clearly handmade. The green mug is at the front of the cabinet, and it’s obviously the most frequently used. I wrap my fingers around the handle, and take it with me as I make my way back into the sitting room. 

There’s only one other door, closed and leading to what I assume is Draco’s bedroom. I pick up Draco’s letter, and then move to the door. I hesitate for only a moment before I push it open and step over the threshold. I light the oil lamps in the room—one on a stand next to his bed and one arching over a comfortable looking wing-backed chair. His small-double bed is against one wall and there’s a wardrobe against another. There’s a closed door, which can only lead to the en-suite. 

I place his letter and the mug between the pillows on his bed, and open the wardrobe. There are a few naked hangers in the cupboard, but it appears that most of his clothes are still here. I won’t let myself be reassured by this. Sirius left me a houseful of possessions, after all. I run my fingers over the obviously expensive silk shirts and cashmere jumpers, until I pause on a black jumper that’s made of coarser yarn than the rest. I pull it out. Find that it’s faded almost to grey, nubby under the arms, and there’s a tiny hole at the wrist. This is obviously a favourite jumper, though I can’t imagine Draco wearing it in public. I liberate it from its hanger, and toss it to the bed.

There are two small drawers at the base of the wardrobe, one of which contains his pants and socks and another a dozen handkerchiefs and pocket squares. I notice a powder blue handkerchief, embroidered with the initials _DM_. It’s the same colour as the jumper-tee shirt that Draco wore last night. I take that as well.

In the bathroom, I open his cabinets, pull back the curtain from the claw-footed tub. There’s a dry bar of soap sitting along the ledge, and when I hold it to my face I recognise the clean, spicy smell of Draco—oatmeal and cinnamon. I wrap the soap in the blue handkerchief, and leave the bathroom.

I examine myself in front of the mirror attached to his wardrobe. I’d tried to look nice, though my options were limited. I went with a pair of new black denims and a short sleeve black collar shirt. Bright pink socks. _You’re ridiculous, Potter_. I’m falling apart over someone whom, before last night, I hadn’t spoken to in years. 

I slip off my trousers, and pull Draco’s old jumper over my head. I crawl under his covers. There’s a window in the wall against which his bed sits, and through the gauzy curtain I can see the yellow lights of Hogsmeade. I wonder what it must be like for Draco to live here, hated as he is by the Wizarding world. I pull the duvet over my head, close my eyes. I’m not ready to face Draco’s letter.

When I wake, it could be hours or minutes later. I feel like I haven’t slept at all, and also like I’ve been sleeping my entire life. I open Draco’s envelope, and pull out several sheets of thick parchment filled with Draco’s neat writing. When I unfold his letter, a photograph falls out. I instantly recognise Draco, though he appears to be eight or nine. His shining platinum hair is long, tumbling over his shoulders in curls, and he’s wearing feminine sea-foam green robes with a high, lacy collar. He’s holding a similarly robed doll. There are dark circles under his eyes, and there isn’t a trace of a smile on his face. I sit up and start reading.

> Dear Harry,
> 
> Let me start by saying how sorry I am for how I treated you today and for leaving like this. I told you that you could trust me, and I know that I'm breaking my promise already. I'm taking a short leave of absence from my fellowship, and I've gone to Paris to stay with my mother. Please don't come after me. I'll be back in London soon, and I hope that you'll be willing to see me then.
> 
> When I got back to my flat last night, there was an owl waiting for me from Rita Skeeter—a copy of the article that appeared in this morning's paper and a request for a statement. I knew almost immediately that I had blown my chance to be honest with you. You'd given me the perfect opportunity when you asked about my father, and I balked like a coward. Like a _Malfoy_.
> 
> I'll tell you my story now, and I can only hope that you'll read this. When I was a child, my parents told me that I was a girl, though that never felt right to me. I've enclosed one of the only pictures that I kept of myself from this time period. It was one of three photographs that I secreted away in my Hogwarts trunk when my family left France. I believe that my parents burned every other photo of me, though I don't know if they too kept any secret mementos. You'll see in the picture that I was not a happy child.
> 
> I was raised for the first ten years of my life to be poised, quiet, to defer to my father in all things. My mother doted on me. I was her perfect double. She dressed me in robes to match her own and kept me with her at all times. I had tutors in etiquette, dancing, languages, magical arts. I was to be the perfect wife for a man like my father. Until the day that Severus came calling with a letter from Hogwarts addressed to Draco Malfoy.
> 
> If anyone other than Severus had delivered my letter, I probably would have graduated from Beauxbatons, maybe even as Delphinia Malfoy. We were expecting a letter from them any day, though I’ll never know if that school’s magic would have recognized me by my true name. My parents had fled Britain after the first Voldemort war. My father avoided Azkaban by the skin of his teeth when he claimed that he had been _Imperiused_ , and he managed to secure—no doubt through bribes and blackmail—a position as ambassador in the British Magical embassy in Paris. I don't think they planned to return to Britain, and had kept in contact with very few people.
> 
> There had never been an announcement in _The Prophet_ about my birth, so when Severus arrived with a letter on my eleventh birthday for Draco Malfoy, it was possible for our family to rejoin the British Wizarding world without disclosing my status as trans. To this day, I don't exactly know why they agreed. Hogwarts’ magic recognised that I was a boy, and they simply accepted it. I'd like to think that it was the look of pure joy upon my face when Severus referred to me as their son, but I don't know. It's a long time since my relationship with my parents was anything but a very murky grey.
> 
> My father asked me if I was a boy, I said yes, and they told Severus to expect one more Slytherin on 1 September. They made him take an Unbreakable Vow not to disclose the fact that I was assigned female at birth, except to Dumbledore and Madam Pomfrey. The Vow he took to protect me the summer before our sixth year was not the first time my mother dared asked the unthinkable of him. When he returned to Britain the next morning, my parents set about enacting their plans.
> 
> Delphinia Malfoy died that day. They destroyed all evidence that I had lived as a girl. They cut my hair, and burned all my robes and my beloved doll collection. I cried over my dolls for hours. Burned my hand trying to retrieve my favourite from the fire. I didn't understand what my dolls had to do with being a boy. My father told me to stop crying. I wasn't a girl anymore, he said, and he would expect me to behave accordingly. He explained to me that there are different standards for men and women, and especially for Malfoy men. I had less than three months to learn to be a boy, and he would test me along the way. I didn't understand. I had always _been_ a boy.
> 
> But I knew what was expected of me. I parroted my father in everything—his cocksure pose, his sneer, his hateful speech that I'd heard him spouting in private for years, the way he treated others as inferior. Putting on Lucius Malfoy was an outfit that never felt right, but I knew that it was the only way they would allow me to be myself—or as close to myself as was acceptable to my parents.
> 
> My mother and I moved into Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire the day after the burning of Delphinia, and my father followed the next week. In the months before the start of school, he trained me in how to be a boy. The first time that you and I met, in Madam Malkin's, was my entrance into the British Wizarding world—something else that we have in common. That day was also the beginning of one of a long series of disappointments for my father. Though I'm sure you'll remember me as the hateful boy I presented to the world, inside I was glowing. I looked how I'd always imagined myself, and I had met _you_.
> 
> When my parents and I returned home that afternoon, I told them that I'd met the most beautiful boy I'd ever seen. The boy I was going to marry. You. I know that sounds strange, to be eleven and thinking of marriage, but for the first ten years of my life my mother had always talked about my future husband. My father was outraged. They had rearranged their entire life so that I could be a boy, and me being gay was not part of their plan. 
> 
> I know how bizarre that sounds. To be okay with “trans” but not “gay.” But they never thought of me as trans. One day, I was their daughter and, the next, their son. They never thought about the body under the clothes, never discussed how I would deal with puberty, with sex. When I was older, they would find some pure-blooded family who had fallen on hard times, fit me up with a wife whose hand as well as silence they could buy. I imagine an heir would have likewise been procured. Until then, I was to conduct myself as befitting a Malfoy man, which meant never telling a soul about being trans or gay. Being a poofter was fine for some people, but not for a Malfoy. I don't think I fully understood what it was they expected of me until the day I met you.
> 
> By the time you and I saw each other again, on the Hogwarts Express, my world had turned on its axis a second time. By then, my father had taught me to be ashamed, to hide away parts of myself. I suspected what in later years I learned to be true—I was a disappointment to my father. Though I tried and tried, I never lived up to his idea of what it meant to be a Malfoy man. When I turned sixteen, it was my _father_ who was in disgrace. That summer, Voldemort offered me his Mark, and I am ashamed to say that I look it willingly. Proudly. Not only was this an opportunity to be something other than a disappointment, I believed that I could restore my father to his previous position in the Dark Army and protect my mother from Voldemort’s anger. I spent so many years believing myself a failure, believing that, in my father’s eyes, I would never be a Malfoy man, that I leapt at the chance to prove to him my worth to the family.
> 
> As I faced Voldemort’s impossible task, it took very little time for me to regret my decision, to realize just what it meant to try be my father’s son. Soon, there wasn't a part of me left that wanted to be a “Malfoy man,” though I no longer had a choice. I believed that the Dark Lord would kill me and my parents if I didn't succeed in the role that my father had set for me. When at age eleven I saw you on the Hogwarts Express, however, things were more confusing. I had a burning desire to make you my friend, but mixed in with those feelings was the shame I felt for wanting you. And anger at you for making me disappoint my mother and father.
> 
> I'm ashamed to reflect on my behaviour in school, to remember the way I treated you, your friends, and anyone else who didn't fit my father's criteria for an appropriate associate for a Malfoy. Many of the hateful things I said were repeated from my father, but if I'm being honest, I took out my anger about my own situation on our classmates—especially on you. Though I may have appeared confident when we started Hogwarts, I was plagued by a fear that my secret would get out. Someone would see me changing or in the shower. It had nothing to do with being ashamed of being trans, but that my father would be disappointed if anyone found out. Though Hermione, Padma, Blaise, and Pansy all know, telling them meant overcoming a near pathological need for privacy.
> 
> I told Hermione first, during our eighth year at Hogwarts. My father was in Azkaban, my mother escaped once again to Paris, and I wanted to be my own man. I'd been passing as a man for years, but I wanted to make some changes to my body. I take after my mother, and while that meant that my features were very delicate for a boy, I had her tall, thin frame. I'd bound my chest with a Charmed vest for several years, and what little other curves I had I covered with robes a half-size too large. I was able to pass as a man, but I didn’t feel comfortable with the thought of dating and getting naked in front of another boy. In third year, Severus taught me how to brew a potion to suppress menstruation, but the Wizarding world—even with glamours and Polyjuice potion—has no permanent means to aid transition.
> 
> During our eighth year, many of our class had apprenticeships in addition to coursework, and, as you know, Hermione and I served under Madam Pomfrey, as we'd both been accepted into the Derwent Academy of Healing for the following September. We managed get drunk one evening after a shared shift in the hospital wing, and I apologised for my behaviour over the years. Somehow, I told her about my history, and she told me that Muggles have drugs and surgeries that help people transition. One weekend, we went into Glasgow, to a Muggle bookshop, and she helped me find some literature about transitioning and a fitness book with exercises targeted to certain parts of the body.
> 
> In the years following the war, the Ministry wanted to be seen as pro-Muggle and were pushing an integration initiative, creating false paper histories for wizards who wanted to venture into the Muggle world. For Muggle-borns and many half-bloods, that history is already there—you’re assigned a National Insurance Number when you're born, you have a medical history, school records. For many members of the Wizarding world, however, that paper history does not exist, so any interested Wizard would be assigned an Integration Case Worker. Hermione went with me to the Ministry, and I received an NIN, a fake medical history, and a credit card linked to my Gringotts account. We made an appointment with a private Muggle doctor, which I paid for with my credit card. It took several months, but I was on Testosterone before we graduated from Hogwarts. I had top surgery three years later, before Hermione, Padma, and I started our residency at St Mungo's.
> 
> When you asked me to talk about my childhood yesterday, I wanted to tell you. I want to live my life in the open. Be brave like you. But the moment I hesitated, I felt like such a fucking _Malfoy man_. I said that I wanted to keep my father separate from yesterday, but, the truth is, he was there looking over my shoulder, telling me to keep quiet. Inside, I was thinking, _Tell him, tell him!_ But as I found myself unable to speak, I was ashamed. Not ashamed of my secret, but ashamed that I had kept it. Hadn't the war taught me that the last thing I want to be is a Malfoy man? I see the mark of him every day on my arm—my real shame—but somehow I still didn't come out to you when I had the chance. It should have been so easy, as you gave me the perfect opening.
> 
> I don't know why I couldn’t, Harry, because I truly believe that there isn't a part of me that is ashamed to be trans. Though I've only come out to a small number of people, that's more to do with the fact that I have very few friends in the Wizarding world. I think my hesitation might have had something to do with the fact that it's you, that these feelings that I've had for you for so long have always been linked to my father's disappointment in me. I admire you so much, but I can’t imagine you wanting to be with me—with a _Malfoy_. I've gone to Paris to spend some time with my mother, because I need to come to terms with what it means to _me_ to be a Malfoy man. I have always assumed that she agreed with the way my father treated me, but I've never talked to her about it. I have to know if she was as browbeaten from being a Malfoy wife as I have felt being a Malfoy _son_.
> 
> I hope that when I come home that we can start again. I want to know you, Harry. So much. There are so many questions that I want to ask you. When did you start doing wandless magic? How did you choose your tattoos? They’re beautiful, by the way. I want to hear about your favourite books, about your job. It's just that there are some questions that I have to answer about myself first. I know that I have no right to ask, but please wait for me.
> 
> Yours,  
>  Draco

  



	3. Day Fifty-Seven

When Harry was eleven years old, he bought his first wand from Ollivanders. Holding the holly stick in his hand, he felt his magic rise to the tips of his fingers, warm and tingling. He drew the wand through the air, and his mouth dropped open as the room was lit in a kaleidoscope of colours. Red and gold sparks rained down on his shoulders, on his face—warm on his skin like the long forgotten caress of his mother’s palm on his baby cheek. Feeling the magic travel through the wand and burst from the tips of his fingers had felt comforting, like coming home. But it had been tainted when Mr Ollivander told him that his wand shared a core with Voldemort’s, as if he’d been holding the wand that killed his parents. Though he tried to push the thought aside, it niggled at the back of his mind. His magic was scarred.

* * *

_Grimmauld Place_

I stamp my initials in wax to seal the scroll, and tie a Hufflepuff-yellow ribbon around it. I call Brian to the desk, and run my fingers through his brown and white speckled feathers. I adopted the grumpy little boreal owl about a month ago, after Padma’s grandmother died and she had to place a menagerie of magical pets in good homes. I’d never been able to deal with getting another owl after Hedwig, but when I saw his funny face—and its two looks, surprised or annoyed—I wanted him. I fasten the ribbon around my letter to Teddy to Brian’s leg, and hold out a package tied with string for him to grab. It’s the latest in a Muggle romance series about witches, of all things, that Teddy’s obsessed with. Much to Hermione’s chagrin, Teddy takes after me in his taste in literature. 

As Brian’s fat little body takes off into the night, I pull open the desk drawer that holds my correspondence with Teddy. I run my fingers over the flattened scrolls, shifting through the papers until I find Draco’s letter at the bottom. I recognise it by touch, well-worn as it is. In the first weeks after he left the country, I read his letter several times a day. Sometimes, I’d read it with my eyes closed by tracing my fingers over the grooves his quill cut into the parchment. I carried the letter on me at all times. To the bookshop, to pub nights with Ron, to the clubs. I treasured it. 

But after he was gone a month without word, the nightmares started. Some nights, I dream that Draco never comes home, that I never hear from him again. In most of my dreams, however, he comes home, but then leaves again. And again and again. I told myself that they were just dreams, but the feeling crept into my waking hours until it became painful to read his words. Until I almost believed that the letter and the time that I spent with Draco was the dream. I’m still waiting for him. I still have hope. But I had to put his letter away. I shut the desk door, and leave the attic.

In the sitting room, I stretch out on the couch, plop my bare feet on the coffee table. I’ve been to the Dragon’s Arms tonight, with Hermione and Padma. They’re still there. Hermione was quite drunk, but Padma will get her home to her place. I’m taking a gulp of tea from Draco’s green mug when the bell rings. Frowning, I glance at the hulking grandfather clock in the corner; it’s gone twelve. There are very few people who could be at my door.

I pad over to the entrance hall, still sipping my tea, and swing open the door. Draco is standing on the porch, looking fit in a thick black wool cloak, snowflakes catching on his lashes. He has a bag slung over his shoulder, and I don’t know whether he’s just returned from Paris or if he’s stopped at his flat and is hoping to spend the night. He’s holding a gigantic bouquet of snapdragons, long stalks with orange, red, yellow, and pink petals.

“You’re back,” I say. I don’t know how I feel about it. I thought that I’d understood why Draco felt he had to leave, but seeing him, a flare of anger rises up.

“Can I come in?” His eyes drop to the mug in my hands. I shrug, as if his presence is neither here nor there. As if I’m not drinking from a mug that I pilfered from his flat. I’m annoyed at myself and annoyed at him. I’ve imagined seeing him again so many times, but it didn’t feel like this. Like we’re back on the balcony, playing games. Or perhaps I’m out there alone. I turn on my heel, let him follow me if he likes. I drop onto the couch again, put my feet on the table as if I’m feeling relaxed when, in fact, the opposite is true. I hear the heavy door shut, and glance up to see Draco shrugging off his cloak. He’s wearing all black, and his jumper is tight across his broad shoulders and thick arms. I’m suddenly very aware that I’m wearing denims and a skimpy, sleeveless mesh shirt, coal lining my eyes. I probably look like a total slag. “Harry…”

He sits down on the couch, to my right, and places the snapdragons on the coffee table next to my feet. No one has ever given me flowers before.

“Are those for me?”

“Hermione, actually.” My head snaps toward him. “Bad joke,” he says. “Yes, they’re for you.” His eyes drop to my arm, and I can practically feel his gaze running over the roses tattooed on my skin. “I know you like flowers.”

Unconsciously, my hand rubs over my chest through my shirt, to the petals that bloom there. I got my first tattoo, a black outline of a rose on my right inner forearm about two years after the war. I wanted to cover the scar left by Wormtail’s silver dagger. At first, my plan had been a tribute to my parents. But as I thought about all the dead and the gone I had to remember, I was horrified at the idea of my skin becoming a graveyard. I just wanted to make my body into something beautiful.

I badly want to pick up the bouquet, but something prevents me. I flash to the dreams where he’s back, and then gone. _Gone, gone, gone_. I think about the rose on my shoulder, the rose that he brought into bloom. How in the months that he’s been gone, the tattoo has been a comfort but also felt like a scar. “What do you want, Draco?”

“I want to say I’m sorry for leaving.” He’s sitting on the edge of the couch, hands resting on his knees, palms up as if he’s waiting to be slapped. Or for me to take his hand. “And to ask if it’s too late.”

 _I don’t know, I don’t know_. I stand up, grabbing the bouquet. “I’m going to put these in water. Stay here.”

I snatch a crystal vase from a bookshelf, an artefact left behind by a former Black family resident, and stalk down to the basement. I stand at the kitchen sink, feel my heart racing in my chest. He doesn’t want me. He’ll leave again. This is my only change to have him, to be with him at least once. _I have to be with him once. Just once_.

When I return, he hasn’t moved and looks as uncomfortable as when I left. 

“Let’s go to my room,” I say.

“What?”

“I want to fuck. Is that a problem?”

“Harry, I don’t think—”

“Is it a problem?”

“I don’t know.”

I shrug, and head for the stairs, still pretending that his presence doesn’t affect me. That’s utter shite, of course. My hand on the railing is trembling. He follows me to my room on the second floor. I light the candles with a flick of my wrist, and let him look around for a moment. I picked the smallest bedroom, and I’ve made it quite cosy. It’s decorated in warm yellows, and there’s a shelf lining a wall with my favourite books, mostly Wizard romances. My newest acquisition is a series of stories about a male Veela and his wizard boyfriend, which might have something to do with the pale hair of the Veela race and a certain man who is currently in my bedroom. I come up behind him as he’s examining my books, and tug on the hem of his jumper. He turns around, his hands on my wrists.

“Harry, wait—”

“I really, really don’t want to,” I say. “Please?” I hold my breath until he nods, and then pull his sweater over his head. His hands drop to his sides. My fingers are still shaking as I slip the top most button on his collared shirt. I yank the tails of the shirt from his trousers, finish with the buttons, and push it off his shoulders. My eyes first fall on the straight scars under his pectoral muscles from his surgery, but then I see the long silver line that stretches from his collarbone to his belly. _My_ scar. I touch my finger to the tip. “I didn’t know…”

“Harry—”

I cut him off as I lean over and kiss the scar where it begins, dropping to my knees as I follow its curve down his chest. My hands grip into his sides as I press my face into the place where it cuts through the trail of light hair on his belly. I look up into his eyes as I place kisses all over his skin. I can’t quite read the look on his face, but his intense, enigmatic gaze is familiar to me. His hand drops to the rose on my shoulder. His fingers trace the petals, and my skin alights with sensation. My hands move to his belt buckle.

“Is this all right?” I say.

“Yes.”

I pull apart the buttons closing his trousers, and tug them down to his knees. I glance up at Draco as I slide his briefs down his thighs. His moon-coloured skin is pinking up, and he’s breathing heavily. The light blond hairs on his belly also cover his legs and his cock, which I take between two fingers. It’s about two inches long; he’s already hard. I run my finger up and down his cock. His hands move to my head, his fingers tangling in my hair.

“Is this okay?” I say.

“Yes.”

“I want to suck you. Is that okay?”

“Yes, but…” He hesitates, and I realise that we should have talked about this, that I’m rushing things because this might be my only chance. I sit back on my heels. He makes a disgruntled noise. “I want you to suck me, but don’t put your fingers inside.”

“Okay,” I say, leaning forward and kissing the crease of his thigh. I kiss across his pelvis, bury my nose in the blond curls. I kiss the head of his cock. It looks like mine, but smaller, I think as I pull it into my mouth. I use my tongue on the underside of his cock, and he makes a pleased sound in the back of his throat. My hands slide around his hips to his arse, pulling him toward me, trying to tell him it’s okay to move.

“I want…”

I release his cock. “What?”

“I want to fuck your face.”

I don’t answer, but quickly take his cock back into my mouth, dig my fingers into his arse. I flick my eyes to his, and his fingers tug at my hair. I like the feeling of being controlled, _owned_ , and I hum in appreciation. He yanks harder, thrusting his hips forward, pressing my nose into his pubic hair. There’s that intense, almost angry look in his eyes as he stares at me, riding my mouth. I am hard, but I don’t touch myself. This is about him. I have to show him what he means to me. I increase the pressure of my tongue, circling around the base of his cock. I suck a little harder with my lips, and his head drops back against my bookshelf. I laugh a little at the sight of his blond hair against my Veela romance novels, as he lets out a breathy _Gods_ and _Harry, Harry, Harry_. I can feel his orgasm coming, his bum tensing in my palms. His thrusts stutter, his hands in my hair jerk, and the muscles in his thighs are jumping.

“Oh, gods,” he says as he stills, holding my head to his cock. His fingers in my hair are suddenly gentle, running through the tangled strands. I pull off, rest my cheek against his thigh. I can feel the aftershocks of his orgasm against my skin. I listen to his ragged breath as his fingers cradle my head. After a few minutes, he tugs lightly on my shoulder. I stand up, and he takes my face in his hands, kissing me, first softly and then more roughly. “Get on the bed,” he says into my lips.

I scramble onto my high bed, on top of the duvet. He pushes his trousers and pants the rest of the way off. Seeing him naked for the first time, I feel my breath catch—he’s stunning. I want to touch every part of him. _Please don’t let this be a one-off_. He crawls onto the bed, runs his hands up my belly, under my flimsy shirt. He pushes the hem up, and I lift my arms over my head and raise my shoulders from the mattress as he removes my shirt. He drops it to the floor, and lowers his head to kiss the blooming rose on my shoulder.

“Mine,” he says.

I suck in a breath. _Yes_ , _yours_. He kisses the bramble wrapping around and down my arm. By the time his lips press into the rainbow of colours on my belly, kiss up the lavender stems and cherry blossom branches, I am trembling. I am hard, leaking. He kisses my belly button. Rubs his face in the black hairs on my stomach, and then unzips my denims. He strips me of my trousers and pants in one go, and takes my foot in his hand, kissing my ankle. He moves up my calf, bending my leg backwards to touch his lips to the underside of my knee, my thigh, the bottom of my bum. I imagine a new tattoo, bright handfuls of snapdragons lining my skin in pink and yellow, red and orange, blooming stalks from my ankle to my bottom. He kisses the inside of my thigh, and my legs fall open.

“I want to—”

“Yes,” I say. “ _Anything_.”

He moves up the bed, over me, grabbing one of the pillows by my head. He presses a kiss to my lips. “So beautiful…” My hands grip his shoulders, nails digging into his skin. I kiss him harder. _I love you_. I release him, and he shifts down the bed again. “Lift up,” he says, running his hand over my bum. I raise my hips, and he places the pillow under me. He pushes at my legs, and my hands fly to the back of my knees, holding myself open for him. His breath catches, and he traces a long finger down my thigh, to the spot behind my balls, pressing. I mewl, biting my lip to stop the embarrassing noise. “I want to hear you.”

“Okay,” I say.

I let out a moan as he runs his finger over my hole, which clenches for him. “ _Gods,_ you’re…” He doesn’t finish whatever he was about to say, and, though I wish he would, I realise that I don’t need him to tell me how he feels, how he sees me. He leans forward, and though I know what he’s about to do, I cry out his name as he presses a kiss to my hole, his tongue slowly tracing the rim. I feel like I’m on fire. No one’s ever done this to me before. I pull my legs farther apart, pushing my arse up to get closer to him. He increases the pressure of his tongue, dipping into my hole. I drop my legs over his shoulders, fingers scrabbling at the duvet. He has one hand on my arse, the other gripping my thigh, as his tongue thrusts into me. I push back against him, my back arching off the bed.

“I’m going to come,” I say. “Draco, I’m going to come!” He pulls his tongue out of me, and I moan in protest. He crawls up my body, settling on top of me. I wrap my legs around his waist, clutch at his shoulders, his back, press kisses over his face. He lines his cock up with mine, grinding on top of me. My cock rubs up against his belly, and I rock up into his thrusts. I turn my head to the side, close my eyes, and his lips move to my throat, sucking. I feel my balls tighten, and I squeeze my legs tighter, roll my hips harder against him. “Draco, I’m ready.”

He ruts faster, kissing me, pushing his tongue into my mouth. I feel him stiffen, moan my name, as my orgasm burns through me. My legs drop to the bed, muscles clenching, and I pulse onto his stomach. My thighs are twitching as he slides off of me. Even in the afterglow, I feel a shock of fear go through me. I grasp for his hand, entwining our fingers.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he says. He pushes on my shoulder, and I release his hand as I roll onto my side. He fits his body to mine. I listen to our ragged breaths until they slow down, sync up, before I ask the question that’s been on my mind since I opened the door to him.

“Can you tell me about it? About Paris?”

There’s a pause as Draco draws in a breath. “It wasn’t a mistake to go, but it wasn’t… I thought there was something I needed from my mother, but I was wrong.”

“You were?”

“Yes.” He drapes a leg over my hip and I squeeze his thigh. “My mother… I know that she loves me. I never doubted that, not really. But I don’t know if she’ll ever be able to acknowledge what my father’s expectations did to me. What she let him do…”

“I’m sorry.” I pull his hand to my face, kiss his palm. “You were gone… a long time.”

He sighs. “I know.” He clutches me to him. “It wasn’t my mother who I needed something from. It was Paris. The place where people had seen me as a girl. It was still familiar to me, almost twenty years later. And to walk in the streets, to visit the cafes and the shops that my mother and I went to, to live _there_ openly as a man… Maybe no one knew who I was, but it felt like Paris remembered me. Every step... It felt like coming out, Harry.”

“I’m really happy for you.”

“I’m sorry I left the way I did. And for being gone so long. I just wasn’t ready…”

I squeeze his hand. I don’t forgive him, because there’s nothing to forgive. I don’t know that the dreams of him leaving will stop, but I’m determined to trust him while I’m awake. There’s still a lot that Draco’s not saying, and I want to hear about every step he took, if he wants to tell me. But he’s said enough for now. I trust that we have time.

"You came back."

"I kept looking over my shoulder, looking for you. But you were never there."

“Maybe…”

“Yes?”

“Maybe someday you can show me Paris?”

“ _Yes_. Definitely, yes.”

“Sleep now?” I say.

“Hang on. Where’s my wand?”

“Why?”

“I want a Cleaning Charm.”

“Oh,” I say. “I can do that.” I raise my palm, and fling a _Tergeo_ over our bodies.

“You and your wandless magic,” he says. I smile, because he doesn’t know that my wandless magic is down to him. I returned his hawthorn wand to him after the trials, and started using my own again. But the holly never felt quite right again, never felt as warm and comforting as the magic I created with his wand. There were plenty of old spell books in Grimmauld’s library, and, while it took me a couple of years, I eventually learned to cast without a wand. At the time, I didn’t understand why no other wand but Draco’s felt right, but as his palm caresses my chest and he presses a hot, open-mouthed kiss against my neck, I have an idea. The wand chooses the wizard, after all.

  


_fin_

  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Comments are much appreciated here or over at [LiveJournal](http://dracotops-harry.livejournal.com/320383.html)!


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